
LILLIE BUFFUM GHACE WYMAN 




Book . W75li^ 

Copyright N» L^I3__ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



INTERLUDES 

AND OTHER VERSES 

Byl^iLLJE BuFFUM Chace Wyman 




Published by ^, B. Clarke Company 
26-2S Tremont Street, Boston 



Copyright, 191 3 
By Lillie Buffum Chace Wyman 






Thomas Todd Company, Printers 
14 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. 



©CI.A347953 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Introduction . 

Motto, by Jeanie Spring Peet 

Dedication 

Seemed My Soul Existent 

A Dirge . 
The Irish Chieftain 

Prelude . 

The O'Neil . 
The Hero . 

Preston S. Brooks, or The Coward 

The Hero 

Oliver Brown's Widow 

Lucifer the Fallen 

Northern Maidens . 

Mary McGuinness . 

From Age to Age 

Ah, Can It Be? I, II 

Ben Butler 
In Arcady . 

Memory . . 

The Jubilant Wind . 

Man Exultant . 

Unnamed. I, II, III, IV 
Three Cities 

I, II, III, IV . 
Purple Asters . 

I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX 

[iii] 



V, VI 



IX 

xi 
xiii 
xiv 

XV 

I 
3 
4 
17 
19 
23 
24 

24 
25 
26 

27 
28 
30 

35 
37 
38 
38 
39 
45 
47 
51 
53 



Wendell Phillips, The Hermes 

I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X 
XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV . 
The Minstrel and Helen 

A Duet . . . . 
Songs from the Cloister of Age 

There Are Cloisters of Many Kinds 

As It Was in the Beginning 

To J. C. W. I, II, III, IV, V . 

Across the Gulfs of Life 

Lake George 

s. o. c. . 

E. B. C. . 

There Is a Love 

Thomas Davidson 

The Woman and the Girl 

Oh Hush Thee 

Sergius Stepniak. I, II 
Epigrams . 

Wendell Phillips, John Crawford Wyman, 

William Lloyd Garrison, John Weiss, 

Lucy Stone, John Brown, Julia Ward 

Howe, Ellen Terry 

Orchard Blossoms 

In the Orchard 

Minnie 

After Goethe . 

Sabbatia Cottage 

A July Day 

[Iv] 



' — Continued 




Appeal . 


135 


The Old Story .... 


135 


Fredrika Bremer Stood . 


136 


Thomas Wentworth Higglnson 


137 


Anna Redfield 


139 


Interludes 


141 


The War Secretary .... 


143 


The Secretary of State . . 


148 


Sic Semper 


156 


Alexander H. Stephens . 


160 


A Man Unknown to History . 


165 


A Man of the Period 


175 


Helen Pitts Douglass 


180 


L'Envoi. I, H 


182 



[v] 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

John Crawford Wyman . . Frontispiece ^ 
In photogravure 

The Baby .... Facing page 40 ^^ 

Wendell Phillips . . Facing page 65 "^ 

Printed by permission of Francis J. 
Garrison 

Ann Greene Phillips . . Facing page 77 '/ 

Printed by permission of Francis J. 
Garrison 

Samuel Oliver Chace . Facing page 108 G 
From a cameo likeness 

Mignonette . . . Facing page 1 30 ^ 



[vn] 



INTRODUCTION 



MOTTO 

nr^HE Gray Dawn, at Carmel, 

"*- Comes floating from the sea ; 
She's free from joys and sorrows, 

From light and darkness free. 
Her sunless hour of being 

Is but a wistful dream ; 
Oh, pity her, you human phantoms : 

You also only seem. 

Jeanie Spring Peet. 

Carmel-by-the-Sea, California 
Christmas Day, 1910 



[xi] 



I dedicate this volume to the memory of 
John Crawford Wyman, concerning whom it 
was well said, "To those in need, he was charity 
itself ; and to all he was gentle with the courtesy 
of a true gentleman." L. B. c. w. 



[ xiii ] 



CEEMED my soul existent to love thee, 
^ As in Summer's sweet weather 
Loved it rose that was Yorkist, 
Rose that in June 
Did its petals combine, 
Like flakes drifted down from the moon; 

Now, my soul, far distant below thee. 

In the Summer is nether, 
Misses rose that was Yorkist, 

Rose, from whence soon 
Fell the petals divine, 
Like notes that are lost from a tune ; 

If I lift up my lyre and accord it, 
Benison to my song, wilt thou award it? 



[xiv] 



A DIRGE 

/^LEAR be the minstrelsy, 
^^ Him, that would sigh ; 
Sweet be the phantasy 
Where doth he lie ! 

Hymnal of poesy 

Like lullaby, 
Unto his ecstasy 

Fain render I ; 

Doth he remember. 
There now on high. 

How, In September, 

Maple leaves amber. 
Up to the sky. 

On the winds clamber? 



[xv] 



THE IRISH CHIEFTAIN 



PRELUDE 

T SAT, long since, within thy chamber. Love, 
■*■ And saw, upon thy whitely changing face, 

A shadow, like a pencil, making trace 
How passed the Deathly Angel close above; 

I heard his whisper on thy breathing move. 
As he had caught it from thy lips apace. 
And filled it with far echoes out of space 

Whose fateful voice he was the Master of; 

And, as I saw and sadly barkened, came 

The story of O'Neil into my mind 
And laid upon my singing accents claim, 

So forth did ancient faith and sorrow flow 

On rhythms, that my pulses had combined. 
As, from mine own, I sang of Ireland's woe. 



[3] 



THE O'NEIL 

Hiii2;]i, Earl of Tyrone, was the last Irish 
chieftain to bear the title, "The O'Neil." An 
able, cultured man, he married clandestinely the 
sister of Sir Henry Baiz;nal, the Lord IVIarshal, 
who opposed the match. Tyrone then joined 
the forces endeavoring to free Ireland, and 
Bagnal, who commanded an English army, was 
slain in battle with Tyrone's confederates. For 
several years Tyrone maintained himself against 
the English. He treated with Essex at the 
ford of Lagan in behalf of Ireland, and Essex 
agreed there to an armistice in order to lay the 
grievances of the Irish before Elizabeth. The 
Queen angrily disavowed Essex's Irish policy 
and sent Mountjoy in his place to Ireland. To 
him Tyrone was finally forced to surrender, 
evidently in the hope of gaining more for 
Ireland by submission than by resistance. He 
apparently gave his allegiance to England in 
good faith, but the treatment which the Irish 
received from James I provoked him into some 
indignant utterances, which rendered him an 
object of suspicion to the English government, 
and he finally fled to the continent, and died 
blind and broken-hearted in Rome in the year 
1616. 



[4] 



Tyrone 
/^ LD, blind and helpless, like a fallen stone 
^^ Amid these Roman stones I lie. Each 

block 
Of marble hath a history. And I — 
I, too, am but a marred and broken rock, 
Down tumbled by the pitiless great storms 
Of my tempestuous past — the storms that 

rushed 
From sea to sea, o'er Erin's prostrate land. 
Half sunken in the grave am I, as they, 
In sand, these stony statues of old men; 
But I — unlike to them — I bear a heart 
That aches. 

Ursula 
Come to the open lattice, love, 
And feel the sun. 

Tyrone 
It tells me that the year 
Hath rolled around and brought again the day 
Commemorating still the one when I 
Did lay my hope, my life, and Ireland's chance 
Low down before an English soldier's feet; 
But Mountjoy smiled in scorn e'en as I knelt. 
And then I knew my kneeling was in vain. 
Not such was Essex, when we met that morn 

[5] 



Beside the ford. The sun shone bright. My 

heart 
Went out to Essex as we talked. My faith 
Was strong in Essex — good and kind was he. 
How could she let him die, that fickle queen? 
But Mount] oy jeered that day above my head ! 

Ursula 
Forget the day, O'Neil. 

Tyrone 

I shall more soon 
Forget my God. 

Ursula 
You make me weep, O'Neil. 

Tyrone 
O sweetest English rose, O English wife. 
When hast thou wept at words of mine before ? 
Yet surely thou hadst cause to weep. 

Ursula 

And cause 
To love, O'Neil. 

Tyrone 

Now tell me, dear, art thou 
As fair as in the days when I could see? 

[6] 



Ursula 
I think not, since, O'Neil, upon the street 
The people do not turn and look on me 
As once they did. 

Tyrone 
And doth it grieve thy heart? 

Ursula 
Not much, my lord. 

Tyrone 
I would it did, my wife. 
One tiny flaw of vanity in this. 
The crystal of thy soul, would seem to me 
To justify — in part — my youthful pride. 
The rash presumption of my love when I 
Did deem myself a fitting mate for thee. 

Ursula 
It gladdens me to hear you jest, O'Neil. 

Tyrone 
What, art thou ever glad with me, my girl ? 
For England was thy country, dearest love. 
As Ireland mine. And England's sword was 
turned 

[7] 



Against my country's breast. I could not 

choose 
But try to beat It back. 

Ursula 
I knew that, dear, 
In that wild morning hour I married you. 

Tyrone 
Oh sweetest, maddest hour that ever dawned. 

Ursula 
From madness sometimes groweth peace, 
O'Nell. 

Tyrone 
And blessed patience, like, my wife, to thine; 
Yet tell me something now, for, ere I die — 

Ursula 
Nay, do not talk of death. 

Tyrone 

Yes, tell me now 
Before I die, one thing I have not known. 
Thy brother's name hath ne'er been breathed 

by us 
Since on my soldiers' spears he fell and died. 

[8] 



Ursula 
I never breathe his name except In prayer. 

Tyrone 
Hast thou remarked the silence 'twixt us 
twain? 

Ursula 
I have the silence felt, O'Nell. 

Tyrone 

A mist 
Has crept between us, slow enfolding us. 
And was it dark for thee within the mist? 

Ursula 
Thou stoodst there with me, dear, 

Tyrone 

O sweetest heart, 
O truest, tenderest heart of woman kind ! 
Now, look you, wife, these eyes of mine are 

blank. 
But In my soul are other eyes which yearn. 
With something deeper than a lover's pain, 
Within one hidden chamber in your heart 
To see. 

[9] 



Ursula 
It shall be open to your wish. 

Tyrone 
Didst thou not love thy knightly brother then, 
Although he would have crossed thy young 
desires? \_A Pause^ 

Ursula 
He was so much my elder, that he bore 
Me in his arms, when I was but a child, 
Beside the English streams. I love him still. 

Tyrone 
Ah me! 

Ursula 
It is a woman's fate to choose 
Between her loves. I made my choice, my 
lord. 

Tyrone 
A rueful need of choice to thee. Close grew 
The thorrs on either path and flaming red 
The blossoms were with blood. 'Tis passing 

strange ; 
This hour my spirit seems released so far 
From thine, that I can pity thee, in truth, 
As if thou wert another — not my wife. 

[lO] 



Ursula 
Draw nearer, then. Thy pity hurts me, Hugh. 

Tyrone 
I never loved thee more than now, and yet 
A strong wind bears me forth from thee, and I 
Look back and see thee in thy patient pain; 
When thou didst move among both maids and 

men, 
Amid all matrons and all children, both 
The lowly and the folk of high degree, 
As one who never gave unto herself 
A thought, except to measure her sweet 

strength 
And match it with another's need, for gift 
Of service and of consolation full. 
And joy-bestowing tenderness. O wife. 
So queenly in humility, that thou 
Didst quite forget thou wert high born and 

fair — 
But how the wounded, sick, the poor and old. 
And little babies loved thee, dear ! 

Ursula 

Their love 
Enveloped me with gladness — theirs and 
thine, 

[ii] 



And so I must, I think, have given back 
Some comfort — yes, I truly hope I did; 
I walked, a blessed woman, by thy side. 
Rejoicing that the blessing came from thee, 
Since thou hadst led me where so many loved. 

Tyrone 
We were so close through all those changing 

years 
I could not look on thee till now. For me 
Thou didst renounce thy girlish home, thy kin. 
And all that love wherein thy stainless bud 
Of life, as in a garden, grew until 
It ripened to the faultless flower. 

Ursula 

That flower, 
O'Neil, was thine. 

Tyrone 

O hapless English wife 
Of England's direst foe ! 

Ursula 

Thou art the foe. 
My Irish lord, of England's darkest crimes, 
And what thou art, am I. 

[12] 



Tyrone 

Ah, God to me 
Hath given the only perfect thing that grew 
On England's soil. 

Ursula 
'Tis sweet to hear your words, 
O'Neil, but they do praise me more, far more 
Than I deserve. 

Tyrone 
My dear, thou art my hope, 
My only source of faith. 

Ursula 

Oh, no, the church 
Doth bless thee, love, besides. 

Tyrone 

In all this world, 
This world where I have fought and failed, 

I rest alone 
On thee. 

Ursula 
Nay, let me call the priest, O'Neil. 

Tyrone 
It shall be as thou wilt. The priest may come. 

[13] 



Ursula 
It frightens me to see your face, O'Neil. 

Tyrone 
Fear naught, for here in ancient Rome the 

church 
Shall shelter thee; and our young son shall 

grow 
In grace and stature, after I am gone, 
Though English soldiers burn and plunder 

still 
In Erin's land. 

Ursula 
O brave and broken heart ! 
My husband ! Ah, speak yet again ! O'Neil ! 
O'Neil ! I think I never yet have told you 

half 
How much I love — 

Tyrone 
Here endeth all but love; 
The long endeavor and the baffled flight — 
The rising hope — the charging on again — 
The cheated faith — the dull despair of 

God— 
The sullen effort in contempt of Fate — 
The joy of battle and the pain of loss — 

[14] 



The disappointment drinking steadily 
Like thirst, through dragging years, my drop- 
ping blood; 
All, all Is ended now save love; — O wife, 
My Ursula, in heaven I hope to see — 
Once more — thy face ! 

[Dies] 



[15] 



THE HERO 



PRESTON S. BROOKS, OR THE 
COWARD, 

TO 

A CONFIDENTIAL FRIEND 

January, 1857 

nr^HE women kissed me, and their odorous 

-* breath. 
The pressure of their white, bare arms around 
My neck, the murmur of their soft applause, 
The gay, triumphant laughter of the men 
Who greeted me, when home I went to try 
My cause before our Southern gentlemen — 
All bore me on a billowed sea of glory; 
I did not care that Burlingame had gone 
To meet me there in Canada; — I laughed 
Within my sleeve, that I had fooled him so, 
And sent him on such bootless errand. 

But 
I've wondered lately how the story'll read 
In history. Damn the future critics. That 
Is what I say. No future world of men 
Can understand our Southern cause. 

Well, yes, 
I do confess I'm just a trifle sick. 
At last, of seeing canes and getting gifts 

[19] 



Of golden-headed sticks; — and silver coins 
In number thirty, came from Yankee girls. 
Blasphem'ous females ! They were girls who 

work 
In cotton mills beside the sea ; and lost, 
Of course, is all their maiden bloom and sense 
Of fitness and religion. 

No, I think 
'Tis said that he has never breathed a word 
Of me resentful. Hypocrite, he is, 
Though Mrs. Child considers him a saint. 
He must detest me though he is a prig ! 

He lay a fallen column on the floor, 

I stood above — how other could I stand? 

I should have shot him, had he risen up, 

To struggle — yes, I meant to do the job 

That I had undertaken, and to shoot. 

If so I must. But, stunned at once, he fell; 

I saw the beauty of his curling hair. 

E'en while the blood flowed through it, and 

I struck! 
I wish I had not struck those final blows ; 
But I was in a rage that seemed divine, 
A great Olympic madness in my veins; — 
It moved my arm. I don't repent; Oh, no! 

[20] 



But wish I had gone daring Northern wrath, 
And met that Burllngame and fought it out 
With him, though dead I lay, in consequence, 
This hour beside the bawling cataract. 
I think 'twere comfort now, to be — just dead. 
But I am young and strong, and I shall live 
Yet twoscore years, at least, to play a part 
In shaping governmental form for this, 
Our Union, or its Southern half. 

'Tis said 
Today, that Sumner'll live. Do you suppose 
He'll dare to come to Washington again? 
I don't believe he will. I think that I 
Have done so much. I've silenced him, and 

all 
His fellow Abolition Yankees. 

Ugh, 
I have the queerest feeling in my throat; 
I'll talk with you another time, but now 
I'll go and try to sleep. 

\_Later^ 

I think that ne'er 
Again I'll sleep — alive — upon this earth! 
It hurts ! I am too young to suffer so ! 

[21] 



Loose, loose the collar ! There's a vision 

haunteth me ; 
I see Charles Sumner standing by a grave, 
I see the name upon the stone. It's mine ! 
Ah, God have mercy, it is mine ! I hear — 
Keep hearing Sumner say, "Poor fellow!" 

That! 
It maddens me. I wish that Sumner would 
Be silent by my grave. I hate his voice ; 
I've heard it in my dreams and when awake ; 
I could not go beyond the hearing it ! 
I choke ! Good-by. Let Sumner live or die, 
Or suffer through the years to come, and howl 
Unto the world; — if, only, never more 
I hear his voice, I am content. 

Go call 

My mother now, that she may see me die. 
And whisper "Darling" in my ear, and stop 
The noise of Sumner's groaning there. 



[22] 



THE HERO 

A MAN unlettered, but the Sages 
-^ ^ Knew him, on the Concord plain. 
As looked they from the hermitages 
Gray and stained by Nature's rain; 

A man uncultured, but the Lady 
Knew him, nor beheld in vain, 

Who bore him solace from the shady 
Lawns beside the tidal main; 

A man of mystery, but the People 
Knew he did not life disdain 
Who for others laid it down. 

So soldiers marching past the steeple 
Cheering, sought the Battle Plain, 

Cheering, singing, ''Old John Brown." 



[23] 



OLIVER BROWN'S WIDOW 

C AD little Martha sat and sewed, 

^ She did not tremble — only once she 

cried — 
Her baby born and dead, two teardrops 

flowed, 
Then Martha did the thing she could — 

she died. 



LUCIFER THE FALLEN 

TN all ages and all climes 
-*- Destiny repeateth crimes; 
Fallen Lucifer again 
Roamed the awful battle plain, 
Where the slavers' rebel blade 
Nation building work essayed 
O'er that quivering "corner stone" 
That was made of flesh and bone, 
Made of ravished human soul. 
From itself which slavers stole; 
Fallen Lucifer was fain. 
Seeking still his end to gain 
On the beast conceived plan. 
That to clod, degradeth Man. 

[24] 



NORTHERN MAIDENS 

npHROUGH the fading decades five 

■'- Have the spinsters stayed alive, 
Since the Fortress Sumter fell 
Under Charleston's rebel shell. 
Decades five the black-robed Priest, 
Walking South and West and East, 
Never hath a bridegroom found 
Lay not stiffened under ground. 

Sat the spinsters fair and young. 

Each with silent lips and tongue ; 

Sat the spinsters gray and old, 

And they never mortal told 

That they always heard a wail, 

Sounding on the midnight gale. 

Crying, "Love, I still would come 

But my limbs are cold and numb. 

So I send to you my ghost 

From the grave strewn Southern coast." 



[25] 



MARY McGUINNESS 

Che was just an Irish lass 

With old Erin's honest eyes, 
But the rank Virginian grass 

Groweth where her husband lies. 

Hither over rolling sea 

Came she, doomed to break her heart 
When the Bull Run musketry 

Did its mad rebelling part. 

Alien offering, to atone 

For our country's deadly sin, 

Laid she on the altar stone, 
Just a widow's weed to win. 

Fain I would her veil of crape 
With a shamrock garland bind. 

Fain our banner round her drape, 
Lit with stars and level lined. 



[26] 



FROM AGE TO AGE 

FROM age to age, the form tyrannic 
And method suffer Ariel's mystic change, 
Sea-dipped in Time's vast cavern where 
the strange 
Deep tides are more than Oceanic, 

But changes not the germ organic 

Of master impulse that would life arrange 
To crush the weaker, drive it till it cringe 

Before or king or proud mechanic ! 

Beware my Country, lest despotic graft 

Grow alien — yet deep bedded on our tree, 
An Upas foliage — not of Liberty, 

Till faith shall sicken, and our Nation daft, 
Reel, as the poet sang, both back and East, 
Where Man is tyrant or a minion Beast. 



[27] 



AH, CAN IT BE? 
I 

A H, can It be of this vast Universe 
^ ^ The primal secret, — that e'en Eden's 

curse. 
And cause thereof, man's error that provoked, 
Were both, of Ignorance, (creative cloaked), 

Which tried to do a task too difficult. 
The fell and unexpected sad result? 
So sits today a God, in yonder bourne. 
Who doth His helplessness remorseful mourn? 

Then pity us. Thou God, and take our pity. 

If came the dooming Sorrow on us so, 
Wail Thou in Solo to our Chorus ditty, 

Wail, wail the pain above, and that below. 
The anguish born to die in Earthly City 
And pass to meteors where the comets glow. 



[28] 



II 

There Calvin by Servetus rideth grim, 

And with a torch he lights the sunset sky; 
*'Nay, light it not," the God doth strangely 
cry; 

"I meant no sin," saith Calvin unto Him. 

"Mine was," pleads Torquemada, "conscience 
whim;" 
"And mine mistake," Las Casas breatheth 

sigh ; 
"Ours dogma was," vow they who did 
deny 
The spirit's right to own its body's limb. 

"When God," cry all, "created gulfs of pain, 
And sentient creatures down its caverns thrust ; 
We thought the base of gulf was pavement 
just." 

"Nay, nay," the God declares, "'tis quicksand 

vain; 
Creation is a car; — with Me hold fast 
The reins, and help Me drive the quicksands 

past." 



[29] 



BEN BUTLER 

'' I ^HE dusky regiment rushed, storming up 
-■- Newmarket Hill, as Butler gave com- 
mand, 
And though the rebel guns their bullets hurled 
To meet them, firm they clutched their bay- 
onets. 
Up climbing, while Ben Butler, watching, 

stood 
Upon a summit near, Intent to see 
If negro soldiers could, as much he hoped. 
Endure such scathing fire, and forward go, 
And mount the hill unto the belching guns. 
And smite the slaver hands from off those 

guns. 
Or would they crouch or run In paltry awe 
Of white men. So Ben Butler watched; for 

then 
The nation reeled, both North and South, 

with pride 
That scorned the negro, doubting were he 

man, 
Like other men to do and dare ; nor yet. 
In open battle, had his nerve been tried. 
There, on Virginian soil, where he had been 
A chattel sold. 

[30] 



Up, up the negroes marched, 
As sure they were no longer contraband — 
Grim warfare's unresisting spoil — mere 

things — 
The shuttlecocks, thrown back and forth 

^ again, 
'Twixt armies and the auction block; 
Now they were men, who sought the rebel 

horde. 
To test each soldier there in single strife, 
And strike him dead for right to rear a child, 
And own a wife, and lay a hearthstone smooth 
Beneath a sheltering roof. Black men, at last, 
Were they, to strike their rebel masters dead, 
And dare the threatened gallows tree. 

On, up 
They strode, a phalanx armed and strangely 

grim. 
Avengers of a fearful wrong and woe, 
Distorted Images of Judgment Day. 

But silence brooded all the fortress o'er, 

When vaulted into It the remnant left 

Of that dark troop, and high their banner 

held 
Like torch, above the ramparts and the 

sward ; 

[31] 



For, just a moment, ere they, shrieking, cam.e, 
The rebels saw their eyeballs gleaming fierce 
From out of faces dark, and fled in fright, 
Too madly frantic for escape to be 
Ashamed to run from minions. 

So they took 
The fort, those negroes, sudden proved as 
men. 

But far below the captured walls, the way 
Was strewn with bodies gashed and corpses 

stiff. 
In none of which had dwelt a spirit craven. 

Then Butler, mounted on his war horse, rode 
That fearful path, and reverent turned his 

steps 
Amid the wounded and the dead, and saw 
How blood as red as Saxon vintage flowed 
From gaping, blackened flesh; whereat his 

soul. 
Like to a giant, rose in righteous wrath, 
And swore he to his God a righteous oath : 
"I will befriend and cherish all my life 
The race to which these men belong." 

[32] 



Black, black, 
The ghosts around him smiled to hear that 

oath, 
Exultant smiled, before they skyward sped, 
A cloud of blackened witnesses, to find 
Beyond the sun a country and a home. 

Long years had passed when Butler wrote, 

"That vow 
I have, forever faithful, kept." 

Then down. 
Through azure, sounded trumpets golden- 
toned. 
And on the blast a voice came breathing, 

"Hark, 
Thou, first of all our Generals to proclaim 
Decree that wives of negro fugitives 
Should succor have, — thou, first to find us 

way 
To freedom, Harken now to us and look, 
Thy soldiers offer unto thee, this hour, 
A great salute." 



[33] 



IN ARCADY 



MEMORY 

npHERE is a tufted bloom 

^ Too pallid to illume 
The fields in Spring, 
When mating warblers sing; 

That bloom is brownish pale, 
Its stem is soft and frail. 
It is not fair ; 
You would not for it care ; 

And yet that flower 

Hath over memory power, 

And brings a tear 

Her drooping eyelids near. 

When warblers sing 

And wake her up in Spring. 



[37] 



THE JUBILANT WIND 

A/TAN'S spirit assaulteth the skies — 
■^^■^ But what is his triumph to me, 
Fierce rushing whence Tempests arise 
The soul of the Organ to be? 

Man conquers his brother in fields — 
But what is his glory to mine 

Who master the cadence which yields 
The music of breathing divine? 



MAN EXULTANT 

THE lightning obeyeth my hand — 
The sunlight hath pencil of Titian 
forgot 

And painteth as I command, 

The wind is my piper, and knoweth It 
not. 



[38] 



'T^IS odd, how near that little god, 
■^ Sweet Cupid, comes to doing 

Himself the wooing; 
As though, in way that maidens know, 

He thought a laddie couldn't, 

Or wisely wouldn't ; 
And so, he toots and shoots. 
Then low, salutes, and scoots. 



II 

TET Clara wear the gem marine, which 

-■*-' gloweth green. 

With pearled translucent sheen 

Not quite as that in moonstone seen ; 

The spirit she of cascade foam, a lady gnome, 
Who doth like Undine roam 
Beneath an alien vapor dome; 

And bears she ever on where'er she goes 
A wave-born captured swan. 
While sings she all alone, and carries rose 
White carved of coral stone. 

[39] 



Ill 

C TILL my fancy sees him go, 
*^ A figure lithe, swinging scythe, 

Irish Pompey mowing meadows swampy; 
But in faith, I do not know 

Another thing I can sing 
Of old Pompey, save that long ago. 
He became a phantom fay, Erin's elf astray 
Where pond lilies sway 

When the mill bells ring 
Near the Blackstone's flow — 
Weird old Pompey, tall and blithe 

In the meadows swampy. 



IV 

'HT^WAS queer, so many babies are there 

-■- born down here. 
That I should have the sweetest one did ever 

cry. 
Or bawl, and tumble flat when trying not to 

crawl. 
Or suck its little thumb and look like sleepy 

Puck, 
But so, it happened that I had it, as you know. 

[40] 



\ . 



/^NCE there was a little fairy, 
^^ And her petticoat was blue, 
Made of gossamers were airy, 

So 'twas warm and rather lovely too ! 

Lived she in a mushroom dwelling, 

With a rabbit chaperon, 
But her spirit felt rebelling 

When that rabbit ate her mush alone ; 

Therefore ran she on the roadway, 

Holding up her petticoat. 
While a guiding squirrel showed way 

To the land where women vote ; 

But the sunshine made her dizzy 
And she tumbled down to sleep. 

Where was Master Merlin busy 

Weaving nets the dragon flies to keep ; 

Then the gray old Wizard Merlin 
Touched her forehead with his hand, 

Smoothing back the tresses curling 
Golden, under bluest ribbon band: 



[41] 



Long she lay beneath a hickory, 
And, when up that fairy woke. 

She had turned to blossom chicory — 
And she was so blue she never spoke. 

Never made the smallest murmur, 
Only when the breezes blew 

Grasped her stalk with twiglets firmer, 
While she bluer blue, in silence, grew. 



[42] 



VI 

T THINK it is a doom outrageous 
-^ That we must sleep away 
One third of every rarely precious 
And love-inspiring day; 

Though Shakespeare rhapsodize of slumber 

In his enchanting rhyme, 
I wish he might awake have written 

Through all his breathing time. 

I'm willing both to eat and labor, 

Keep shop or house or sheep, 
But execrate the law of nature 

Condemning me to sleep ; 

When I'm awake I'm really living, 

I talk or sob or laugh, 
But sleeping is an occupation 

Fit only for a calf. 



[43] 



THREE CITIES 



THERE are some stories rise like kingly 
ghosts, 
And say, "What! did you think us dead 

and gone? 
Tho' shroud on shroud be round about us 
drawn 
We walk, grim sentinels at outer posts, 

"And cannot merge our action with the hosts. 
Who hail the glowing Paradisal dawn. 
Until to beings still this planet on 

Be told the awe of life that made us ghosts, 

"The secret awe of God, of love, of sin, 
Whate'er it was that pierced through all the 

thin 
Earth-woven fabrics of our mortal life, 

"And sent us silent forth unto the Shore 
That stretches desert-like and wide before 
The Gate that shelters harmony from strife." 



[47] 



II 

/^ H, empty, save of phantoms, is the street 
^^ In cities three, where wraiths with gob- 
lins meet, 
Nor tell each other how the Angels greet, 
While Silence rushes like the wind-blown 
sleet ; 

Through cities three, there passes empty road; 
It empty were, though thither legions strode. 
And silent were, though blare of trumpets 

flowed; 
And fallen on this earth is mine abode ! 

It lieth ruined by the Beacon hill. 
Nor build it architects of Paris will. 
And by the Bay that house is roofless still 
Above the graves which all its courtyards fill. 

Ah, is there City with pearled fortresses 
Where Angels can defy Eumenides ? 



[48] 



Ill 

IITILLED Providence, that crowns the 

-*^ tidal Bay, 

Thou City of the mingled rivers three 
That bear the toilers' harvest to the sea, 

Still wild and sweet thy palace bells convey 
The message of the dead and gone to me. 
The dead who filled thy halls with mirth 
and glee ; 

There is no amber bloom of asphodel 

Upon thy banks, 
That yieldeth such perfume as tale I tell 

Upon thy banks, 
While ocean's mournful boom is sounding 
knell 

Upon thy banks. 



[49] 



IV 

/^ PARIS, City thou of mad unrest, 
^^ I never have unto the world confessed 
How many sacred secrets mine lie pressed 
And hidden close beneath thy marble breast ; 

My echo song hath never breathed refrain 
Of one sad moan beside the river Seine, 
A moan that sobbeth forth the mortal pain 
That since Creation solace seeks in vain; 

Oh Paris, still I hear a laughter low 

In one bright spot where lamps of evening 

glow; — 
Yet round a fading joy doth laughter flow; 

Where mimes of Danton and of Robespierre 

grope, 
And mock parading of our modern hope, 
Upon thy pavement cast I heliotrope. 



[50] 



PURPLE ASTERS 



I 

T HAVE a friend, beyond the solar ray, 
-■- To whom, I, pulsing reverent, send away 
My tender love and gratitude today, 
As bodied spirit to unbodied may; 

"When you and I," he wrote me once, "a 

cloud 
Shall sit upon, calm-eyed and level-browed 
We shall behold the mysteries unavowed 
By destiny unto the earthly crowd;" 

To him I turned, in hour of deep despair. 

In that unconscious way is well aware 

So thinketh not, "This friend is sure to care ; " 

He stood beside my dying brother's bed. 
His guidance to my marriage altar led — 
His breath was blessing o'er my baby's head. 



[53] 



II 

"Be sure," he wrote me once, "you roam 

about, 
Through Alpine passes wander In and out. 
And linger long where mountains, frozen old. 
With silver summits pierce the molten gold;" 

"Be sure," he wrote me once, "you note the 

light 
On Alfierl's tombstone falleth white; 
And mark the antique grandeur of the way 
Still MIlo's Venus standeth In our day." 

"I never saw, before, a bobolink 
So near," he said, "to ocean's crested brink; 
Now think you could a bird yon sea foam 
drink? 

"But you, can singing, sip the clover dew 
In pastures wide, from whence that warbler 

flew. 
And wildest meaning of the wind construe." 



[54] 



Ill 

**Once came succession," said he, "of sweet 

days 
To me, when all the while my spirit, sheathed 
In tranquil blessedness, unspeaking, breathed 
Thanksgiving to the Lord for all His ways; 

"I murmured in reiterated phrase, 

*0 God, I thank Thee that while floods have 

seethed 
The tree of life for me Is olive wreathed;' " 
Thus spoke my friend with reminiscent gaze ; 

And I, In silence listening, wondered when, 
While civic passions stormed around him wild, 
His soul had echoed psalm the Shepherd sang ; 

Oh, is he blessed now, as felt he then? 
I only know, that down on me he smiled 
Where far-off fog bells over ocean rang. 



[55] 



IV 

His youth had struggled with the elements 
Which rush along the lightning caverned 

sky 
And foam the madness of Niagara by, 

And split the surface of the continents. 

Bold, had he challenged purpose of events 
Where peoples dash their force at law, and 

try 
How will the Golden Rule of Christ apply 

When despots move their mailed armaments ; 

No soldier had he been of holiday. 

And though he once misread an order's 
text, 
And to a fog-like wraith responded "yea," 

Pure as its restless flood, his Titan Soul 

Was mystic as the sea by storm perplexed. 
And fathomless as ocean's baseless bowl. 



[56] 



Desire to help — that was the passion 
Among his varied many, strongest ; 
Ambition rose and sank, but longest 

It moved in self-renouncing fashion; 

When other wish, with embers ashen, 
As righteous or as tired, he covered, 
His hand, so kingly sworn, still hovered 

O'er fragile creatures with compassion. 

Ah, low I whisper, here, a mound beside, 
"Sad asters, sign of mourning and of pride 
And faith that can in field of loss abide, 

"Calm asters, blooming where the woodbines 

creep 
When over Island rocks the breakers leap, 
Be purple pall above my friend asleep." 



[57] 



VI 

A "Silver Saint," one called him in his days 
Were later; and this name it ringeth true 
To chord within my heart, and doth renew 

A cadence there of thankfulness and praise, 

A soft Amen to anthem that conveys 

Deep joy — yet prayer withal that fain 

would sue 
Might something added be the faith unto' 

Which doth that Amen on my rhythm raise ; 

Amid the haloed and angelic band, 

A Silver Saint, thus let him bear in hand 

And show to gods our Autumn's astral bloom 
As mourns it, regal, over Summer's tomb ; 

It is the flower, in Sorrow's vintage stained, 
Proclaiming so a battle lost — yet gained. 



[S8] 



VII 

Now sit I gazing through the window glass 
That barreth out the North wlnd^s rude 

harass, 
And seem to see his face on clouds that pass, 
As drawn by Titian's brush upon the mass; 

As from such cloud, descended to the mold. 

With dark hair blanched, once came he, white 
and old; 

"Now eighty years," he said, "my life en- 
fold;" 

Then Silence like a mist around him rolled ; 

And I, who. In the long departed years. 
Had roamed, a child, beside his manhood's 

track. 
Then stood an Imaged form of mystery black, 

And, putting by, to gaze at him through tears, 
A veil as sable as the midnight's drift. 
Slow murmured, "Where I go I take your 
gift." 



[59] 



VIII 

I sometimes think there must be shapeless 
void 
In some far space, where dwell the foggy 

ghosts 
Of all the pallid, palpitating hosts 
Of days that died unborn yet undestroyed; 

There float they, random, vague and un- 
employed — 
Thin sheeted films of being. On the coasts 
Of Nothingness, they gibber empty boasts 

Of deeds undone and triumphs unenjoyed; 

And we who walk the solid earth below, 
(Or is it close beside?) that realm, wind- 
blown. 
Where helpless moans aborted potency. 

Can only half imagine all the glow 

Of great achievements might have been our 

own 
Had but those days had vital energy. 



[60] 



IX 

Yet can there be beyond the starlight blur, 
Not endless void, where doth oblivion glut 
Oblivion, with our perished chances, but 

A more than wizard God who cannot err, 

And re-creates occasions past, which were 
Else lost, in prisoning Chaos ever shut. 
And makes them crystallize, as jewels cut 

To glorify the sword Excalibur. 

If so, one moment lost, I claim as mine. 
When it shall gleam as amulet renewed. 
And all its chances like to gems I link 

Upon a golden thread, and close entwine 
The aster blossoms, starry, purple-hued, 
Which to my friend, I fling across the brink. 



[6i] 



WENDELL PHILLIPS, 

THE 

HERMES 





f: 


/ 


::■■•,; ~^-^_ 


- 






S<^^^}\ 


\ 


\ c 


^-. i 


/, 




J 








' ^<^ 



/^N high Olympus poised, spoke solemnly 
^^ White Hermes, " Christ hath risen from 
the earth 
Where dwell the men of miserable birth, 
And as He rose he beckoned unto me ; 

"Then plain I did His face and gesture see 
Where stood I, with the Infant god of 

mirth. 
Who babbled playful murmurs at the 
dearth 
Of harvest grapes upon black Calvary; 

"But when, Great Jove, I saw the Christ, 

I felt 
A tender yearning for the little ones 
Ungodlike and unjoyous. He had left; 

"Down at the feet of Christ, I, listening, 

knelt. 
He spoke; — then passed beyond the stars 

and suns; — 
I bear His message to a world bereft." 



[65] 



II 

The corrugated brow of mighty Jove 

Grew closer grooved and blacker o'er his 

eyes, 
Where lightning seemed from forges to 
arise 
Whose onward bolts Vulcanic hammers drove ; 

Spoke he; — his voice the frightened ether 
clove 
In cloudy fragments, tinct with sulphur 

dyes. 
Back rushing from that sound in groaning 
sighs, ^ ^ 

To flood with pain the twillt Delphic grove ; 

Said Jove, "If thou shalt bear the Christian 

word 
To those vile creatures whom I madly made, 
I doom thee, as I doomed Prometheus erst." 

Up Hermes sang his answer, like a chord 
Ascending from the sunlight's downward 

glade, 
*T do Christ's bidding, though by thee 

accursed." 

[66] 



Ill 

Great Pan arose, as earthward Hermes sped, 
And asked, "Who cometh now from cloudy- 
fleece. 
For I can bear no more, who never cease 

To feel the throbbing dew on Calvary shed?" 

From laurel thickets Daphne raised her head, 
Soft moaning, "Canst thou any Art release. 
From passion's Impulse that Is but caprice, 

Whose tumult worketh only final dread?" 

The Troll amid the rocks of Stonehenge cried, 
"Dark vapor cold bedews my forehead damp. 
The soul within hath labor-wearied died;" 

Sang Hermes, "Hear the message that I 

speak; 
The Christ commands His angels forth from 

camp 
To battle for the helpless and the weak." 



[67] 



IV 

" 'TIs safe to leave to every man the rights 
God gave him, and his labor's fullest due, 
Though he be white or bearing other hue ; 

And that it shall be thus, our country plights ; 

"Nor must we ever let our love for sights 
Are beautiful, for sounds accorded to 
The rule of music, nor permit the dew 

Of genial air, whose touch the flesh delights, 

"To melt from out our soul and from our 

sense 
Of justice, higher than benevolence. 
The conscious aching for another's need." 

So from his youth to age, great Phillips gave 
His counsel — so he lived, and so he clave 
With heart and hand unto the Christian creed. 



[68] 



V 

He strode the steamer deck beneath the sweep 
Of one proud banner flaunting o'er the deep, 
And passion to its stars made winged leap ; 
"I will with you," he said, "a vigil keep; 

"Since, Douglass, men deny you roof and 

berth. 
May God make desolate my home and hearth 
And mark my brow with sign of basest worth. 
As I were Cain who roamed again the earth, 

"If I lay down this auburn head of mine 
Upon a pillow that too white Is deemed 
To touch the curls that crown your dusky 
brow." 

He watched all night with Douglass, while 

the brine 
Behind the ship through phosphorescence 

gleamed 
And to the planets signaled clear his vow. 



[69] 



VI 

He walked beside the woman of the street, . 
And reaching gentlest hand, low whispered 

"Come;" 
Then led her to the sheltering, refuge home 
Where might her soul with Peace and Mercy 
meet; 

He stood before the legal judgment seat, 
And for the convict made a brother's claim, 
"Ah, help him out of sin and past Its shame, 

For Justice would convert, not harsh entreat." 

Thus, while he lived, there was a man who 

cared 
If well or 111 the throbbing millions fared, 
He broke his heart to use for service bread; 

He filled the Altar cup with his own wine — 
The vintage flow from forth his love be- 
nign; — 
But mourn ye. Nations, now, for Phillips 
dead! 



[70] 



VII 

The Russian exile sighed, "His voice, alone 
From forth unsympathlzlng crowds, came 

blown. 
With tender comprehension In Its tone. 
To prison cells where fetters clamped me 

prone." 

Sad Ireland's peasant called, "Ah come to 

me, 
Thou, Western peer of high Democracy, 
Thou, Scion of great England's Chivalry, 
And bid thy English kinsmen set me free." 

The Bright-eyed Indian woman cried, "My 

heart 
Is hopeful, knowing he will take my part." 

Alaska's children plead beneath his roof, 
But, proud, the negro held himself; aloof. 
Enforced alien In his native land. 
And said, "He bade me sit at his right hand." 



[71] 



VIII 

Amid the crowding throng, almost alone, 
Life long, stood Phillips — as, some day at 

noon, 
In mart, before both merchant and buffoon. 
The Future's Ghost should mount the ros- 
trum throne — 

Its portent face, illuminated shown, 

By light was yet to be of coming moon. 
Slow moving over Chaos' vast lagoon. 

O'er which not yet the auguring wing had 
flown; 

Then cried the leaders to the startled mob, 
"Why hearken ye to words of ghostly wrath? 
What though a phantom lurk along your 
path?" 

Down Phillips crushed a stifled human sob. 
And spoke his awful sentence, "Quick repent; 
Cast ashes on your head and God content.'* 



[72] 



IX 

Bright was his aspect In his early years, 
And as he older grew, It scarcely paled ; 
He still resembled one who had Inhaled 

The vivifying air of heavenly spheres, 

Then breathed It unto men were not his peers 
In god-like birth, nor had with "splendor 

trailed" 
Around them, winged on sunbeams, down- 
ward sailed 
For Incarnation into chevaliers ; 

A shape of color, auburn haired and eyed 
Like bluets steeped In melted pearls — his face 
As that of Hermes changed by hearing dirge 

That Christian lips were chanting at his side. 
So Phillips looked when with a haughty grace 
He did from city crowds to sight emerge. 



[73] 



X 

"For thirty years," said Phillips, "rode I 
race. 
For thirty years, I waged a desert strife — 
What think you are the pathways now in 
life 
Where foot of mine would, shod in velvet, 
pace? 

"The Beacon hill, I know from top to base. 
And I could summon herald drum and fife 
To dash their music 'gainst the hisses rife. 

And be my conduct to the Ruler's place ; 

"And once perhaps I should have liked to 
tread 
That Beacon path on high, but, long ago. 
In soul of mine, lay down Ambition dead — 

"For my belov'd, whom I had loved to please, 
These many years have lain 'neath grasses 
low; 
Nor more doth hiss at me their spirits tease." 



[74] 



XI 

He looked maid Science sternly in the face, 
And said, "Thou daughter only art of God 
When thou dost soften, for the feet un- 
shod, 

The flinty pavements of the market place;" 

He laid his royal touch on hands that trace 
The lines of Art and rhythmic period, 
And said, "Now render thought of Him 
who trod 

The pathway to the sacrificial place; 

"Though Carlyle sourly grimace as a Sage, 
With Darwin cry, 'The Battle to the Strong,' 
Though Scholars in Republics, aping, mock 

"The manners of the Despot's minion flock. 
The Sermon on the Mount hath cadence long. 
And bids you serve the Weakness of your 
Age." 



[75] 



XII 

I wonder, if upon his palm, he wore 
The sign that Francis of Assisi bore, 
Bestowed in that great hour of rapture, when 
The Saint of Service stood apart from men; 

For never on this earth hath mortal dwelt, 
Since in Italian vales Saint Francis knelt. 
More worthy through self-sacrifice to know 
Stigmata's consecrating ruby glow. 

Than he, who vowed, the stones of Boston's 

pave 
He would too holy make to bear a slave ; 

Than he, who to its children, smiling grave, 
The largesse of his unasked bounty gave; 

Than he, who, old and weary, would not rest 
While not, by ease, were aching millions blest. 



[76] 



XIII 

He took upon himself in age a load 
Of newer social scorn for effort new, 
And Midas from the hand of Jove withdrew 

A thunder bolt fire-sharpened to a goad, 

And hurled It where the gray-haired champion 
strode, 
And thus a baleful lighting round him 

threw, 
As forth he went his Master's task to do 
Amid the laden workers on the road ; 

Cried Midas, "I would statue build of gold 

For you, and crown It with a laurel wreath, 
If you would silent be now you are old;" 

Said Phillips, *'I will sooner God deny 

As holy, than be silent underneath 
His Heaven, when I hear a pauper's cry." 



[771 



XIV 

The doctor spoke the sentence was of death; 
"There Is for you no chance," he sadly 

said; 
Adown then Phillips laid his royal head, 
And "Ann, Ann," whispered he with failing 
breath; 

But then he smiled, as having made his graith 
For crusade long, when close beside his bed 
As though she heard his Doom's approach- 
ing tread, 
Begged one who loved him, "Tell me of your 
faith!" 

"In Christ as Son Divine, I have believed," 
He said, " In Him I see all problems solved ; — 
Round Him have Ages satellite revolved ; 

"He taught to me endurance when I grieved, 
'Twas He who nerved my struggling toil for 

man;" 
Thus Phillips dying spoke — then murmured 

"Ann." 



[78] 



XV 

The Negro stood, a figure black and gaunt; 

And there, rag-clothen 'mid the Boston 
throng. 

He imaged fearfully the crime which long 
Had crushed a race with weight of adamant; 

Yet, from his lips, dumb wishes seemed to 
pant, 
As his was soul birth-strangled in a thong, 
Then quickened unto sense by stabbing 
prong 
Till of itself not wholly ignorant; 

A Celtic woman at the Negro stared, 
Compassion, sympathy out-streaming from 
Her Irish eyes which glistened through a 
tear ; 

"Would you," she whispered, "look on him 

who dared 
Both life and death for you? Then with me 

come. 
And let us mourn together at his bier." 



[79] 



THE MINSTREL AND HELEN 



A DUET 
Wherein the voice only of The Minstrel is heard. 

Scene: by the Seekonk River. Time: the middle 
of the Nineteenth Century. 

' I ''O me those young and white-stemmed 
-*- birches, 

Though clad they are in green, 
Bring ever thought of brides in churches, 

Their maids and grooms between. 

Yes, like this brooklet is the Yarrow, — 

You could a pebble toss 
From bank to bank, — for 'tis as narrow 

As Seekonk here across; 

Well, every poet full doth own It, 

The visloned Yarrow stream, 
As wide as ever he hath shown it — 

Nor wholly as in dream ; 

That is the power to us Is given — 

And right, to Nature change ; 
It Is the will of gracious Heaven 

That poets rearrange! — 

[83] 



Oh, will you try to throw It over, 

This Indian arrow stone. 
And hit that tuft of russet clover 

The farther bank upon? 

Why should a blossom, dead, stay standing 

Beside the golden rod, 
Which empress Ceres holds commanding 

When she Is harvest god ? 

The golden rod Is Autumn's scepter, 

The sickle Is but tool 
For use of harvester, adepter 

When working under rule ; 

Yet harvester hath thought of blessing, 

And of the household good. 
And Ceres bountiful confessing 

Madonna's Motherhood! 

Now whisper — when hath come November, 

Shall we together kneel 
One hearthstone by, and rake the ember 

While bells Thanksgiving peal ? 

You say your friends your great surrender 

In wedlock still oppose? 
Oh Lady, are you then befriender 

Of my determined foes? 

[84] 



Ah, now you cling — above me stooping, — 

You swaying woman vine. 
Your blossomed being o'er me drooping, — 

Like lovely columbine ! 

My love for you were not diviner 

Were I unbodied ghost; 
It moveth unto issues finer 

Than knows the gossip host ; 

Perhaps 'twere well though were I specter, 

On moonbeams fain to glide. 
And sip the drops of odorous nectar 

Down honeysuckles slide. 

And then to rise and join the legion 

Of sprites, in garments white. 
Who animate the mystic region 

Where glows Astarte's light. 

But still to live on earth would please me 

When sky above is blue, — 
And Autumn's brownish tintings ease mc 

As strains of music do; — 

Ah, Helen, I adore you simply. 

And only kisses crave 
When both your cheeks are blushing dimply 

Beneath your glances grave ! 

[8s] 



Yet, deep I know, my star was fatal 
Though brilliantly it glowed; — 

Its portents, on my morning natal, 
Disaster darkly showed. 

No, solemnly I swear it, — sinning 

Is price not I would pay, 
So be I knew, for any winning 

In game of life we play. 

My impulses are not Satanic 

Like those through Adam came, — 

But have the source that throbs galvanic,- 
Unto an end the same ! 

Ah, let us cease our talk of forces 
Which trouble bring or make. 

And watch yon cricket as it courses 
Where wind-blown asters quake. 

Oh, that's a kingbird, he that twisteth 

In nest a whitened thread; 
Know you he follows as he listeth 

The black crow overhead ? 

Know you the orioles he loveth. 
And when their young ones fly. 

Sir Kingbird every chance improveth 
To perch those fledglings nigh? 

[86] 



In Autumn sit the kingbirds gravely 

On fences In a row, 
And stare they blankly and yet bravely 

At Nature's fleeting show, 

As failed within them aught aspiring 
To rise and Southward fly, — 

As breathed within a strong desiring 
Here in the North to die. 

Why, Helen, I have senses double, 
For I was wizard made; — 

You merely saw an iris bubble 
Where sportive children played ; 

You saw the colors, three, prismatic, 

Upon the globule glow, 
And at the sight, you grew ecstatic 

Of such a lovely show ; 

But I, — I also heard a warble, 

As of a bobolink. 
Ring softly from that airy bauble 

Ere did it turfward sink. 

Last eve I stood the sunset under, 
My phantom raptured dumb, 

And low I heard. In sound of wonder, 
The moving darkness come ! 

[87] 



Oh, I believe my soul was native, 
Though not my limbs were born 

Where sang the Stars the joy Creative, 
When first was Eden's morn. 

Yet, Helen, this you will discover, 

If not our fates diverge. 
Creative Song unto your Lover 

Hath taken tone of dirge. 

No, Helen, no! — that bird, black, glossy. 

That stalketh pompous so. 
Among the lichens gray and mossy, 

I'm sure it is a crow ! 

But if it be a nightmare raven, — 

Beloved, grant me then 
The kiss that promises a haven 

To nightmare-haunted men ! 

Oh, dove-eyed darling, music choral 

I hear with perfect bliss. 
Though not for you, a sound is oral 

In my permitted kiss ! 

Well, dearest, I have seen you never ! 

I dream but of your face. 
Imagine it Madonna's ever 

Behind your filmy lace ; 

[88] 



I think, though, Botticelli's creatures 

More softly outlined would, 
When they are wildest, have your features, 

If painted beings could ! 

But not they can, for rhythmic motion 

And varied color hue, 
At every sad or gleeful notion. 

Keep making you anew. 

You talk of form ! Why, evanescent 

Is all we name as form, 
When color is in sunshine present 

And changing shadows swarm. 

Indeed, 'tis only mortals stolid 

And those of silly mirth 
Who think unsentlent Is and solid 

This blossom-pregnant earth! 

Why, color Is alive, and steepeth. 

As elf magician may. 
The earth's weird senses till it sleepeth 

Its summer hour away. 

What? Did you never really fancy. 

That, by some wizard spelled 
Who knows all tricks of necromancy, 

The earth is slumber held, 

[89] 



As from the Universal bases, 

And wearing azure robe, 
It goes patroling starry spaces, 

A trance-bewildered globe? 

And did you wonder should it waken 

Where polar magnets lure, 
If frightened would it feel forsaken. 

Or 'mid the Stars secure? 

But if the earth be frightened yonder 

Alone where planets are. 
How would a woman feel, was fonder 

Of Eden than of Star? 

Ah think, among the Borealis, 

She drifteth on alone 
Who drank with me the wine-filled chalice 

Wherein a pearl was thrown ! 

'Mid diamond spheroids of Orion 

She jewels seeks in vain. 
Who here on earth the dandelion 

Once gathered glad and fain ; 

Oh yes, I loved her — love the memory 

Of her sweet bridal bloom 
As 'twere the pearly shadow shimmery 

Of lily on a tomb. 

[90] 



A shadow heightens while it chastens 

The beauty of this world, 
As over meadows green it hastens, 

Where sunset is unfurled, 

And sinks all separate existence 

In whitely blurring Stars, 
Those silent witnesses to distance 

That not a shadow mars. 

This hour the Sun grants full effulgence, 

As were he king or priest 
Bestowing largesse of indulgence 

Now backward to the East, 

Or like an artist more than kingly 

The landscape overthrows 
With colors blended deep, or singly, 

Till sapphire-like it glows 

As in the backgrounds Titian painted 

The Virgin far behind, 
Rich-hued environments to sainted. 

Incorporated mind. 

Yon oak bush is a liveried varlet, 

A serving Imp defiant. 
With humpy shoulders robed In scarlet, 

Beside the forest giant 

[91] 



Which llfteth up a domed pavilion 

Not Angelo could mock, 
In shape or in its dark vermilion, 

With his Italian rock. 

Oh, legend from the age primeval 

Comes sighing and alive, 
To sing the song of that upheaval 

When did Creation strive 

With Something, in the primal quarry, 

To carve a Love in stone, 
And only made the Angels sorry 

Such statue was begun ! 

'Tis clematis ; that vine, so airy, 

In Autumn bears that puff 
Of lacy, greenish, slightly hairy 

And delicatest stuff. 

It's chambered hollow for a shelter 
To elves when raindrops fall. 

And run their ladies helter-skelter 
To seek its goblin hall. 

I know those fays; — when wanting tipple 
They come a-clattering down 

To break the foam upon the ripple 
Of Seekonk's wavelets brown; 

[92] 



The mouse Is priest of their carousal, 
His round eyes opened shy, — 

And always to an elf espousal 
The rabbit cometh nigh. 

Desiring elfin bride, the froggy 
Comes, making lengthy jumps. 

As leaps he mosses wet and soggy 
Around decaying stumps; — 

'Tis frolic Innocent, though tipsy 
Through glimmer homeward flies. 

At eve, the reeling firefly gypsy, 
With sparkles In his eyes. 

And llghteth up with wayward twinkle 
The Imp frog's marshy yard. 

Which ringeth full of softest tinkle 
And twitter undebarred; — 

Although the Star once lost from Seven 

The nebulas amid 
Still roams, nor finds It place In Heaven 

With Angels panoplied. 

And as It wanders, very distant 
Doth seem the moon below, — 

The moon that hath no light persistent, 
And but reflected glow; — 

[93] 



Yet constant In her white reflection, 

Diana is supreme, 
So making luminous selection 

Forever of her theme ! 

You, Helen, Dian-like, my color 

Transmuted shall receive, 
Nor shall it than the moonlight duller 

Your goddess genius leave ! 

But ere that day, a moan of madness 
Will float a-down the street. 

And bridal song of festive gladness 
In mocking answer meet ; 

And ere that day, in churchyard yonder. 

Above the mounded moss 
A croaking raven long will ponder 

And step a ridge across ; 

Then kiss me, Helen, kiss me slowly 

While I am living still ; 
You never more can kiss, — when lowly 

Is the grave — I fill. 

So kiss me, Helen, quick and often, 

Before the raven flies. 
Whose accent nevermore will soften, 

Though much a woman cries ; 

[94] 



And let me kiss you, till the pressure 

Set deep upon your soul 
The regnant marks of rhythmic measure 

Shall all your life control; 

So shall you be a type forever, 

To ages thus remain. 
Of that fine womanly endeavor 

Doth constancy attain. 



[95] 



SONGS FROM THE CLOISTER 
OF AGE 



THERE are cloisters of many kinds 
In this world of ours below, 
And their builders had many minds, 
As the arching gateways show ; 

But the one, whence I gaze abroad, 

As I hear the whippoorwills. 
Hath the columns of stone unflawed 

Over granite threshold sills ; 

And its sodden footpath never turns 
To the primrose-bordered way, 

Though the heart that's within me yearns 
For the bird-beloved spray; 

'Tis the cloister of life and awe. 

Where the rule of Time hath ceased, 

And 'tis under religious law. 
For incarnate Age is Priest; 

And the censer, he swingeth slow. 
Hath the far-off scent of musk, 

That pervadeth the earth aglow 
In the dewy evening's dusk ; 

And the anthem, he solemn sings. 
Doth, as whispering echo come 

Of the voice, in the wind harp strings. 
When the Morning was not dumb. 

[99] 



AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING, 
IS NOW, AND EVER SHALL BE 

^T^HE winsomest maiden under the sun, — 

-*- Sang she, "Bobolink, whirl you nigh. 
The holiest kisses have 'trothal begun, 
And my glad tears are not dry" ; 

The happiest woman under the sun, — 

Sang she, "Baby bye, lullaby 
My loveliest, beautiful, wondering One, 

Sleepy orioles nestle high"; 

The woefulest widow under the sun, — 
Sang she, "Wail, ye bluebirds, and cry, 

The lordliest living forever Is done 
'Neath the spreading sunset sky" ; 

The weariest mother under the sun, — 
Sang she, "Cling to me till we die. 

Thou darllngest being the planet now on 
Where the bats at midnight fly." 



[ loo] 



TO J. C. W. 
I 

THE mocking bird flew singing on the air, 
The mystic jay bird donned his gayest 
coat 
And tossed like gleaming lance his shrillest 
note, 
To dusky people calling everywhere ; 

The rose of Cherokee went climbing there, 
While off from vines on tree trunks seemed 

to float 
Great yellow roses that the sunbeam smote, 

Thus lifted open to its amber glare; 

And thou and I, beneath the Georgian pines 
Beheld the beauty, heard the happy sound. 
And loved the violets that starred the ground. 

But better loved the Northern sun that shines 
On trees, low bending under Northern snows. 
Than Southern light upon the Southern rose. 



[lOl] 



II 

GOLD-TINTED fell the Autumn leaves 
one day, 
And pelted soft your face, while on we 

drove, 
As they were kisses of the tender love 
Maternal Nature gave your spirit gay; 

We looked across the fields a little way 

And saw down drifting slantwise in a 

grove 
Of maples, where In play the breezes 
strove. 
The floating leaves that seemed a sunlit 
spray; — 

Oh loveliest those leaves In amber shower ! 
But they were dying though they shimmered 

bright 
And yellow, steeped translucent In the air; 

E^en so, your being swaying to Its hour 

Of close, Is smitten through with golden light, 

And falleth beautiful beyond compare. 



[102] 



Ill 

I HAVE been grateful often In my day, — 
For gayest pleasure, e'en for saddest tears. 
For work that dignified the passing years, 
And for the power within my soul to pray ; 

For winter snows and for the bloom of May, 
For little pattering feet, that to my ears 
Made music such as but a mother hears 

When nightfall brings her children home to 
stay; 

But that no flushing, bird-crossed sunset sky 
Was e'er so beautiful in tint of rose. 
So peaceful with its silver evening star, 

As Is thy spirit pausing ere It fly, 

While backward all its sweetness flows, — 

For this, my thanks to God most fervent are. 



[ 103] 



IV 

THE ordered house, the child prone on 
the floor, 
The pictured Virgin, — that sweet one whose 

look 
Bewrayeth that her soul can scarcely brook 
To be so raised, her very God before, — 

Calm Venus in the corner watching o'er 
The room, — the low lounge where an open 

book 
Reveals the verse whose rhyme my fancy 
took 
One moment, ere you called me to the door; 

Thus I remember all, though now is wrought 
A fatal change ; — for strangers ease their dole 
And find their joy, e'en where you laughed 
with me ! 

But echo-like returns the haunting thought 
Of some imagined world where scene and soul 
Dwell on, and I again our home may see. 



[ 104] 



THE changeless law of change, — Oh, not, 
alas, 
'Tis clearly graved alone on human brow, — 
For earthquakes sink the sea, — the heavens 
avow 
The law, and planets like the fireflies pass. 

While man doth still this petty globe harass. 
And adds his little strength with axe and 

plough 
All things to change; — he maketh hillocks 
bow 
Their heads, and putteth stones in place of 
grass; — 

But once a poet sang, consoling mortal kind 
With story of a kingdom saved from fate. 
Where never fade the stars, nor fall the trees ; 

Ah, in that changeless realm within the mind 
Still stands my home with thee, inviolate. 
And memory keepeth sure from rust the keys. 



[105] 



ACROSS the gulfs of life to thee I cried, 
Sweetheart ! 
Across the fated storms, the lightning 
chance, 
The tumult and the crowded spaces wide, 
The hurry and the whirl of circumstance; 

Parched were my lips, my breathing dry and 
hard. 

Sweetheart ! 
I vainly sought a still retiring goal ; 
My feet were broken on the flinty shard 
Where did the pebbles 'neath my footsteps 
roll. 

But ah, with what a splendor moved the 
world. 

Sweetheart ! 
What softest winds of joy and mystery 
Blew over gardens where, like blooms im- 
pearled. 
The lilies glowed, when thou didst come 
to me! 

Across the gulfs of death, to thee I cry; 
We need thee so, Dear Heart, this world 
and I! 

[io6] 



LAKE GEORGE 

' I ^HE lake unto its bosom drew the hills, 
•^ And held them painted proudly there at 
noon, 
And drowned them there before the wide- 
eyed moon 
While flying wildly sang the whippoorwills ; 

Through twenty years that piercing music 
thrills, — 
O haste thee, Love, and slip the moorings 

soon, 
And let us float as in that far-off June 
Upon the lake that drowns its circling hills; 

Oh drift with me to regions far remote 
And dip thy oars where other waters flow 
And other birds ring challenge to our boat, — 

'Mid hills of God that rise, oh let us float. 
And let us float o'er hills of God below, 
While other song repeats the earthly note. 



[107] 



s. o. c. 

THE boy like a mi'rage shape faded, 
Or fled to the outermost spaces, 
As his own loveliness aided 

His flight to mysterious places ; 

Red brown were his eyes, like the tinting 
Of oak leaves that Autumn Is dooming. 

When glory gives mystical hinting 
Of darkness to follow Illuming; 

A figure of dawn, or of even, 

A phantom, In shining whatever 

That throweth down glory from heaven, 
He vanished from eyesight forever. 



[io8] 



E. B. C. 

np'HE house that seemed a vivid life to 
-■• own 

And sentient be itself — is senseless stone 
Today, where sat my Mother on her throne, 
As wife and widow, reverence round her 
strewn ; 

She was a woman of the Titan brood, 
And had the goddess-like and varied mood 
Which tells of changeless iron in the blood 
That still with tender sweetness is imbued. 

Ah Mother, wherefore should the house roof 

stand. 
When all thy race hath vanished from the 

land? 
Why should wistaria's plumage o'er it wave? 

The windows stare like vacant eyes in woe, — 
But roses red, around them, redder blow, 
Deep nourished by the tears upon a grave. 



[109] 



THERE IS A LOVE 

' I ^HERE is a love that no desiring knows 
-■- Save, like a strain of music, to exist 
And fluting move, like liquid amethyst. 
Where temple walls the conscious soul inclose ; 

A sound, that seemeth incandescent, goes 
This wondrous strain, where sits the melo- 
dist 
Of life's great marvel and its organist, 
Who sends it forth while anthem onward 
flows, 

And in that temple human loves that throb. 

All aspirations as they thwarted sob, 

And all the weird, wan phantoms of this life, 

Who stalk with voices singing through its 

strife 
Together and incarnate render part, 
And singing glow, — one miracle of art. 



[no] 



THOMAS DAVIDSON 

T HEARD the deep-souled Scottish Scholar 

A say, 

"The Grecian order, all that wondrous rule 
Of life, which made it columned vestibule 

And into marble turned the human clay, — 

"It died, because beneath its method lay 
No sense of real love, but only cool, 
Fine consciousness In studio and school 

That gesture should a calm effect convey." 

The cadence of the Scholar's Gaelic voice 
Was lingering richly In my charmed ear 
When, turning as by music full controlled, 

I saw the Hermes, — him a child doth hold 
And look surprised to feel himself rejoice 
To watch a child and find its aspect dear. 



[ill] 



THE WOMAN AND THE GIRL 

" ANNE," said the Wife, soft gazing at 
-^ the Maid, 
"You do not understand the truth, who 

dream 
Of love in marriage as the source of bliss 
That shall upspring, through placid, azure 

waves, 
Spontaneous blossom borne upon a flood 
Of limpid beauty tranquil in all change 
While moving 'twixt the pastures green of 

life. 
You dream of marriage love as though it 

were 
That lily in the pond, — white, peaceful bloom 
With golden heart of passion. Ah, mine 

Anne, 
Such dream is sweet and pure ; and there are 

hours. 
In wedlock, which fulfillment seem thereof — 
Hours when the effort is forgotten quite 
Of glacial and volcanic forces, when 
Forgotten also are the rolling streams 
That hollowed out the vale where rests the 

lake 
Which bears the quiet lilies up. 

[II2] 



"Now hark 
To what I say. Anne, marriage Is the gift 
Of rare, fine opportunity which God 
Hath fashioned for our noblest use, so may 
We mortals join Him in creative work 
In this world's studio where buildeth He 
The breathing temple of the human man. 
So, may we, by endeavor of our hearts' 
Strong pulses, through renunciation much 
Of hourly joy and madly great desire. 
Perfect, each one the other's life and deed. 
And if, as often chances, only one, 
Of some united pair, doth fully know 
The end of marriage, or is competent, 
By nature, or preceding living trained. 
To do the mystic, patient marriage task, 
That miracle which turneth ruby red 
The water in the glass of life which waits 
For color, helpless, formless by itself, 
Then must the wiser, nobler one, or wife 
Or husband, do the greater work, as were 
Self-sacrifice the purpose ultimate 
And recognized of his creation. Christ, 
Who knew His mission, died to save a world. 
In marriage, must the wife or husband die 
As special, separate existence, so 

[113] 



To save the other's soul, and through that 

soul 
Help Christ to save the world; — and wait 

and love, — 
And wait again and love. Then bridal hours 
Will dawn that truly bridal are, — such hours 
As poets sing and lovers dream about." 

**And will the dawning glory stay till eve?" 
The maiden eager asked. 

Deep peace shone deep 
Within the woman's eyes, who answered low, 
"Love is itself a bridal rite and hour 
When one is married, ready always for 
Renewal after lapse, — and still it is 
Renewed! The altar cup upon the shrine 
Awaits communion. And the Sacrificial Love, 
Like Christ, both walks the earth and up 
Ascendeth to the sky." 

Reflected glow 
Like moonlight radiance beamed upon the 

face 
Of Anne, as whispered on to her the Wife, 
"Lay down your maiden hopes, — and, being 

wed. 
Lay down your hourly joy in marriage e'en, 

T114] 



Before the chiseled god of marriage, for 

The image needeth sacrifices ere 

It can become ideal, breathing life. 

Grant unto it your all through years of toil 

And weary effort, — you shall know through 

all 
The most perfected peace that earth can give. 
There is no love, that, as emotion mere, 
Can yield a never failing rapture ; but 
There is a love that out of sacrifice 
Procureth joy. There is unselfishness 
That germinateth love. And marriage is 
A bond by Will created, which by Will 
Should be observed, — or traitors we become 
Unto God's highest law that maketh choice 
Have sacramental power to weld our souls 
To the supremest duty." 



[IIS] 



OH hush thee, little, sobbing heart of mine. 
What boots it thus to make thy childish 
moan? 
Dost think, in crying, thou art all alone, 
And none before had reason to repine? 

Look back a thousand years, thou soul of 
mine, 
A myriad aching hearts each year did groan, 
Their groans are silent now, — and so thy 
own 
Will be, — thy fate 'tis easy to divine; 

Red columbine above thy grave will blow, 
And over it shall stream a fragrance wild 
When breezes touch, near by, the elder's 
bloom ; 

As now, forgetful poppies make a show 
Upon the turf 'neath which, quite reconciled 
To death, those ancient mourners found their 
tomb. 



[ii6] 



SERGIUS STEPNIAK 
I 

MYSTERIOUS wizard seemed he, as he 
stepped 
Like Pluto upward from the Russian 

gloom, 
Which mimicked Hades' monster-laden 
womb. 
And, stern controller of an epoch, leapt 

Where Liberty's bespangled garments swept 
The daffodils, so matching stars and bloom. 
And from the glory, like incarnate Doom, 

He bore her where she must his will accept, 

And be companion to that Slavic Fate 
Which maketh man both artist be and clay 
More marvelous than other in our day; 

But as he held her swooned inanimate 
With rapture, yet with fear of his embrace, 
I saw that he belonged to Christian race. 



[117] 



II 

And yet who takes the sword and in the dark 
Doth wield it, where the drowsing air is still, 
And not a whisper giveth warning till 
Down falleth low the tyrant cold and stark, 

He slayeth other than his purposed mark, 
He slayeth something of the righteous will 
Within this world to overcome the ill, 
And doeth somewhat of the Evil's work; 

So evermore the text itself repeats 

Of gospel and the law — yea, of them both, 

And record both of Florentine and Goth; 

Yet high above, John Brown the Russian 

greets, — 
For none, among the martyred army whole, 
Than Stepniak possessed a nobler soul. 



[ii8] 



EPIGRAMS 



A 



WENDELL PHILLIPS 

N Opportunist? No, he made the chance, 
And hewed its palisades of Circum- 
stance. 



H 



JOHN CRAWFORD WYMAN 

IS genius had the rainbow's iridescence; 
Alas, it had the rainbow's evanescence. 



WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 

A MAN, serene, determined, simply gay. 
He fought the hugest battle of his day. 



JOHN WEISS 

AURORA BOREALIS gave the light, 
' Mysterious from the chaliced Northern 
night. 
When did a wizard wight 
Mix diamond chips and marble dust and ice 
With Southern rose perfume and Eastern 
spice. 
To make the soul of Weiss. 

[I2I] 



LUCY STONE 

HER soul, Incarnate In a lion's form, 
Seemed walking by her through the 
civic storm; 
While she herself, so guarded, looked like 

one 
Was both madonna and unconscious nun. 



JOHN BROWN 

LIFE was the great archangel who be- 
-' stowed on Death 
The power to waft his fame upon eternal 
breath. 



JULIA WARD HOWE 

A SYLPH-LIKE woman, delicate and 
fair, 
She placed Minerva's helmet on her hair, 
Then rose like Venus from the cosmic sea 
And sang to soldiers, ''Die to make men 
free." 



[122] 



ELLEN TERRY 

A N elf she was of amber, 
-^^^ Not born but miracle-created, 
While Ariel played a tambour 
And Psyche's spirit palpitated. 



[123] 



ORCHARD BLOSSOMS 



IN THE ORCHARD 

T STOOD beside an apple tree 

-*- An airy hummer flew 
From out of leaves and looked to see 
What would I do ; 

For on a bough, the smallest nest, 

A lichen-covered cup, 
Did, fibre-holden, nigh me rest, 

Round opening up ; 

My hand, uplifted, softly lay 
In pressure on the branch ; 

Mine eyes along the green-hued way 
Did glances launch 

And target met of sombre spark 
From eyes were lidded round. 

Where smoldering of a challenge dark 
Did fierce abound, 

While panting paused the creature still 

Amid the budding fruit, 
Its dainty bosom heaving thrill 

Of passion mute; 



[127] 



So there we at each other gazed — 

Two mortals having birth 
Where blossoms flushed and cattle grazed 

Upon the earth ; 

But I had dwelt in hall and mart, 

The hummer in the wood, 
And neither knew the other's heart, 

For neither could ! 

Then, as emboldened by the sight 

Of me who had not stirred. 
Came dashing by in angry flight 

The humming bird. 

And in the nest it frankly dropped, 

A title to proclaim, 
Too haughty proud to be estopped 

By human dame; 

I never saw an elf more brave 

Than was the pygmy bird, 
Who so a wild defiance gave 

And o'er me whirred; 



[128] 



The tiny bunch of feathers frail 
That seemed like thistle blown, 

Not substance fleshly on the gale, 
Did spirit own. 

So yet the little fairy flies 

Where wizard beings go. 
My comrade In the pageant skies 

It did not know 

When under orchard trees It gleamed 

By nature's Impulse bid. 
And like a darting arrow seemed 

Sun rays amid; 

It had the shadowed color there, 
Doth hue half hinted show 

May other be In radiance where 
The dewdrops glow ; 

But now It hath for vision mine 

Those iridescent wings 
That Perugino's pencil fine 

To angel brings. 



[ 129] 



MINNIE 

DO you know the odorous mignonette? 
As you walk the garden through 
Scarce you see the blossom where 'tis set, 

Though its fragrance comes to you, 
And it seems as if it blows 
To your senses from the rose. 

But quite empty doth the garden seem 
When you walk its pathways through, 

As they were the labyrinths of dream, 
And no fragrance comes to you 

From the perished mignonette, 

Though your tears are falling wet. 



[ 130] 



AFTER GOETHE 

INTO forests I wandered, 
In the wooded aisles, 
On the mystery pondered 
That reconciles ; 

Then a blossom uprising, 

Like a star below, 
With a beauty surprising 

Emitted glow ; 

And enamored to break It, 

With a gestured love 
That was eager to take It 

I stooped above ; 

By the blossom was spoken 

Thus a word to me, 
*'Must I shriveled and broken 

And withered be?" 

With Its rootlets soft burled 

In mosses about. 
That blossom I homeward carried 

And set it out ; 



[131] 



And now, blooming forever 
In a peaceful spot, 

It is lovely as ever, 
And fadeth not. 



[132] 



SABBATIA COTTAGE 

THIS moment e'en, the feet of aliens 
tread 
The staircase, where, In some fantastic 

gown, 
The lady of our revel wandered down 
With step dramatic and a lifted head; 

O'er other dancers now the hearth fires shed 
Their gayly flickering lights from foot to 

crown, 
And deep, the ocean sounding near, doth 
drown 
The voice of other lovers lately wed — 

I know the rooms are ringing with the calls 
Of youth to maid — of laughing guest and 

host. 
While all around the children babbling talk; 

Yet, In my fancy, silent are those halls. 
And empty Is that staircase, where, a ghost 
Uprisen from the dead, I softly walk. 



[133] 



A JULY DAY 

TT scarcely seems as If these flowers, though 
-*• near 

My hand, were such in kind as sense can 
know, 

Or trees and grass did really live and grow 
Within this air so hot and still and sheer- — 

This air that, like a magic crystal clear, 
Hath some enchanting power o'er things, 

I trow, 
So firm their outlines in its mirror show. 

E'en while it seems to make for them a sphere 

Where sense is not, and only soul can see. 
And as I gaze, I feel my eyeballs strain 
And sight supernal almost come to me — 

For something more than cloud is in the sky — 
Those elms are strange as dreams that wax 

and wane — 
Yon sparrow's note is like a spirit's cry. 



[134] 



APPEAL 

IS ever one in Heaven lonely 
Who left his best beloved below, 
Though circling angels sing around him, 
And nowhere is the face of foe? 

To be in Heaven always lonely 

Must be the hopeless most of woe; 

Doth God, while angels sing around Him, 
An uncompanioned sorrow know? 



THE OLD STORY 

HIS life was by a woman spoiled — 
God help us who still women be ! 
We are ashamed, because, when coiled, 

Resemblance in our hair we see 
To hers who thus his purpose foiled. 



[135] 



PREDRIKA BREMER stood upon the 

-■- rock 

That vainly tries to hold Niagara In, 

And sang, "When Nature youthful was, and 

felt 
How good was God and that she loved Him 

much. 
She sent her love ascending on the spray 
Niagara flingeth high to Him." 

Upon those crags a young man, standing, said, 
"Now hurl I life adown Niagara's flood. 
For God, who gave me strength to wrestle 

hard 
With waves that fain would dash me on the 

rocks. 
Himself will bear my soul In safety up, 
Whate'er He letteth happen to my flesh." 
Then plunged the boy the stream within — 

and God? — 
It must have been a god who bore him on. 



[1361 



THOMAS WENTWORTH 
HIGGINSON 

A SOLDIER hath fallen, 
A knight lleth low, 
And memory doth backward 
Through long seasons go. 

And sees him assaulting 
The bastion in town, 

Where lost was the battle 
But saved was renown ; 

And memory beholds him 

Endowing the slave 
With prestige and prowess 

Of manhood that's brave; 

And, everywhere, vision 

It showeth him true 
Companion of woman — 

Sir Galahad too ! 

A scholar and critic, 

For art well he wrought; 

A teacher religious. 

The world 'twas he taught. 

[137] 



Oh, proud is the mourning, 
Though sad by the bier 

Where kneeleth a country 
Doth wholly revere. 

For always his beauty, 
To age from his youth. 

He wielded as weapon 
And sign of the Truth. 



[138] 



ANNA REDFIELD 

SHE was a girl who seemed the bodied 
sprite 
Of Browning's song, a girl too fragile, slight. 
Almost, to be that "phantom of delight" 
Which beamed on Wordsworth's sagely rap- 
tured sight. 

Yet Anna, in her hands, so sylph-like, held 
Life's shuttle, and its motion firm compelled 
Through all the threaded maze of forces eld 
And new close tangled — till the church bell 
knelled ! 

How shall my sonnet round unto complete- 
ness? 
Broken was the shuttle to the chiming dirge, 
Broken sighs the mortal breath I vainly urge 
To bear her name along in fluting sweetness. 

Thirty years and five have flitted since she 

died; 
I recall her — who remembers her beside? 



[ 139] 



INTERLUDES 



THE WAR SECRETARY 

The Secretary 

SO Curtis calls me rank law-breaker ! Bah ! 
That's speech by Benjamin to make one 

smile; 
It cannot be his pulses know the ache 
Of sympathetic throb for captives. He, 
Ben Curtis, sat up nights and toiled through 

days 
To find interpretation of the law 
Which would consign a little girl to chains, 
Tight drawn around her tiny wrists, so 

dragged 
She might be easily to market sale. 
I sat a child, on Lundy's knee, and though 
I never was an Abolitionist, 
The man I am prefers to tinkle bell. 
And order to the fortress Lafayette 
Some man or woman, but suspected of 
The deed or wish Is treacherous, and let 
The little children, Christ-beloved, go free. 

Oh, yes, I know Judge Curtis thought to save 
The Union, when he hunted fugitives 
From off the Bay State soil, while uncles 

beamed. 
And brothers, and his brothers, by the law, 

[143] 



All clapped him on the back approvingly, 
Or did his mandates. Oh ! well, let him have 
All glory that recording angels choose 
To give him for his Union saving zeal. 
I'm Union saving too, — or making o'er, 
As Butler says, in newer shape, — and, faith, 
My task befits my fancy better much 
Than would the hounding one that Curtis 

chose, 
Whate'er may be the law, or way old texts 
May still be read by blinking eyes of age; 
That man is idiot, not a statesman, who 
In hour of crises standeth letter chained 
Before the need for stretching both his legs, 
And kicking something hard. 

Let Curtis growl 
Until his legal soul is satisfied 
With consciousness, supreme, that he has 

raised 
And full exploited every quibble, that 
Might damn our Nation, ere 'tis wholly born, 
I am its rough physician, and I'll pull 
It through. 

\_A messenger enters and gives a letter, 
which he reads'\ 

[ 144] 



The Secretary 
That's proof enough. I smelt that rat 
In darkness nibbling at the cheese. 

\_He touches a hell, and then whispers to 
the messenger, who goes out^ 

The Secretary 

There Is 
A cell now vacant In Fort Lafayette; 
It will an Inmate have tonight, who'll howl 
The midnight through alone, and Curtis will 
In most judicial manner rage at morn! 

My head aches, — well, I would Incarcerate 
My life In that low cell, which ne'er again 
Is empty, having once been filled ; there would 
I lay these weary limbs of mine to save 
My country, — and I think that grave v/Iil 

yawn 
For me before m.y work is fully done. So be ! 
I am content. If Lafayette be full 
This night of traitors safely housed. 

\_J child enters'] 



[145] 



The Secretary 

Ah, Tad, 
ril make you now lieutenant of the guards. 

The Child 
And can I orders give to them, to march 
Or wait all night before the White House? 

The Secretary 

Yes. 
The Child 
And must my father do as I command? 

The Secretary 
The President must every word of yours 
Obey. 

The Child 
And Mother too? 

The Secretary 

That's doubtful. Tad; 
The law is not quite settled as to that. 
But here is your commission signed and sealed. 

The Child 
I'll practice with the guards tonight, and go 
Tomorrow morn and catch old Lee and bring 

[146] 



Him straight to you. What will you do with 
him? 

The Secretary 
Lieutenant Lincoln, if you please, I have 
Not quite decided yet. 



[147] 



THE SECRETARY OF STATE 

1863 

He sits by a table in his office. He throws 
a newspaper on the floor. The sheet has head- 
lines which announce the recent delivery of an 
oration in Cooper Institute, New York. 

CO, ^'all the dogs, Tray, Blanche, and 

*^ Sweetheart, bark 

At me!" Well, when the thunder pealeth 

loud. 
Who cares for yelping of a cur behind 
A shed, because his kennel door is closed. 
And puppy is a little overdrenched? 

Ah, but, when loose the dogs of war are 

slipped. 
Suppose that Cerberus joins the pack to filch 
From every raging hound his bit, as sop 
To that enormous appetite, he nursed. 
In age long hunger, at the mouth of hell, — 
If that should chance, the dogs we lead along 
Our chosen warpath to the victor's field 
Might, snarling, turn upon each other, and 
Upon that greedy Cerberus, even more 
Than on the lawful foe, although the hound 

[148] 



Of destiny do call himself a god, 
Olympic born, and not a hell hound fiend. 

Diana's stag hounds tore a mortal once, 
Who only glimpsed eternal loveliness 
And ne'er possessed It. Ah, I wonder If 
The myth hath meaning such; — and doom 

befell 
Because he only caught a glimpse, and lacked 
The wit and courage on to press, and seize 
The stainless creature of the moon, and so 
Proclaim, and make, himself the peer of gods. 

\^The Secretary rises, walks about, sits down 

again, picks up the paper, reads a while, 

then slowly lays it aside, and speaks'] 

He once imagined necromancy, that 

Should cause my word, of some preceding day, 

To ring throughout the upper atmosphere. 

The very moment that I spoke below. 

Contrasting speech to other purpose, so 

The listening crowd should hear It all at once ; 

He called one utterance, "deviltry," — "di- 
vine," 
The other. Whew! 'Tis lucky we're a race 
At bottom amiable, — we Yankees. 

[149] 



Ah, 
I will permit my tongue to whisper in 
Mine ear, I'm sorry after all, and know 
My wife will sadly grieve, because those lips. 
Bee-kissed to honeyed bitterness of breath. 
Have blown such potent blast abroad, that 

thick 
The air around me seems with golden spears. 
Most beautiful, but deadly, — hurtling shafts. 
Well aimed at my bare breast, and piercing it 
In time and tune of faultless melody, 
Yet pointed as Apollo's darts that slew 
The sons of Niobe. And, so serene. 
Stands Phillips, thus discharging bolts of 

death. 
As does the marble image of the god. 

I wish I had a presence like to his; 

The figure, feature, voice, and graceful 

pose ; — 
I've done the best I could with nasal twang. 
And wagging head, and spiteful Nature's gift 
Of all endowments are unsuitable 
For practice of the oratoric art. 
Yes, pretty well I've done, — at Freeman's 

side, — 
Poor idiot, whom I saved from undeserved 

[150] 



Calamity; — and on the prairies too, 
Where men, mad, shouted great amens to 

words 
Of mine, — and in the halls of Congress when 
I dared confront the Southern law, and speak 
Of law was ''higher;" 

Home I went that eve. 
And how she smiled and wept and softly 

kissed. 
As with betrothal gladness o'er again, 
"You shall both prophet and the leader be," 
She cried; "As unto Moses, so to you 
The law hath given been. 'Tis graven, not 
On stony tablets ; here, upon my heart 
And in your mind, the perfect rule is writ. 
O Love of mine, I now anoint you priest 
And true Lawgiver, and your feet shall tread 
The Promised Land; beside its flowing brooks 
And o'er its prairie pastures, stretching west 
From one free ocean to another — free. 
You shall not merely gaze, from far, across 
The intervening desert ere you die ; 
Love, Love, you shall our country's legions 

lead 
In triumph through each Rocky Mountain 

pass 

[151] 



And Southward, to the shores beside the 

Gulf." 
Thus spoke she, panting on my breast, my 

wife, 
Who had for thirty years of married love 
Looked beautiful to me as on the day 
When first we wedded. 

\_He sighs, pauses a moment^ then 
continues^ 

Once Phillips praised 
My power to sway an audience. It was when 
We both orated to New England folk 
By Plymouth Rock, and high as Heaven flew 
Our double aspirations soaring; wide 
As ocean, level as its surface, seemed 
The pathway he and I might tread to goal 
Of conquest. 

I had wished to meet with men 
Belonging to the section most extreme 
Of abolition purpose, when I went 
That year to Massachusetts. Him I saw 
And much admired. I know when I behold 
A man whose soul is diamond firm, yet hath 
The tints are opaline, warm flashing through 

[152] 



Its facets, with a changeful constancy. 
Such gem, — creation of Aladdin's lamp. 
Not chemic process, is his genius. 

Now, 
Aloof he stands, his sapphire-colored eyes 
Brimful of azure scorn, the while his lips 
Refuse to smile at any clever trick 
Which would provoke a grin on other face. 
I wonder what he thinks he sees, when thus 
He gazes? I suppose he fancies he 
Perceives the way each thread is spun that 

makes 
My nature's warp and woof, and knows if 

flax. 
Or wool, or cotton, or if shoddy be 
Both thread and woven fabric ; — well, if sure 
He knows my loom and product, and the 

thread 
Behooveth best its shuttle's motion, well 
He knows a lot of things I don't, — Not I. 

Yes, on my word unto myself, although 
I know I'm clever, not I am acquaint, 
Quite fully, with a man who bears the name 
Of Seward. He surprises me at times. 

'Tis rather strange, the things a man can do 

[153] 



And those he can't. I could with Davis chaff 
And pleasant converse hold, and dinners give 
To all pro-slavery men before the war, 
And laugh with every rank Secessionist; 
I can Abe Lincoln manage now and then, 
Play bluff with Butler, — beat him too, and 

keep 
Him back, when he would stop the Emperor 
From marching into Mexico. I could 
Twist Adams round my thumb, and twirl his 

wits 
Upon a bobbin compromise. I can 
Outwit Lord Russell, — subtly turn defeat 
To victory, and spread a future snare 
For England's foot, anent those two "old 



men" 



Who went to sea in bowls of leaky law ; 

I can retain the love I love, and hold 
— I think — her faith until I half believe 
I'm worthy of it. Ah, I am too sure 
She would forgive the flaw she seeth not! 

I can keep Sumner's friendship, though 'tis 

task 
A trifle difficult; for he's a man 
Of most punctilious righteousness. But there's 

[154] 



A spot in Sumner's 'cello heart that yields 
A note, accordant to my practiced touch, 
And vibrant of an olden love and wish; 
Thus can I cope with Sumner ; — but one thing 
I cannot do, — make Phillips deem I am 
A bona fide champion of the law 
That's "higher." Well, he is particular 
About that law ! There's nothing else to say. 

\^Leans hack in his chair and laughs. After 
a moment he says^ 

And now TU write my wife and tell her how 
Yon white rose gleameth in the sunlight there 
Beyond the window pane, — each petal with 
A moonstone shimmer, warmer, finer than 
The changeless chastity of ocean's pearl. — 
Diana's moonstone, — and her beauty 

glimpsed. 
Not caught and held! Ah me; O Rose, O 

Stone, 
Of radiance made, that holds supernal glow 
White, — white yet throbbing even In the 

glare 
Of noonday sun ! — Til write unto my wife, — 
About the sunlight and the rose and moon. 

[155] 



SIC SEMPER 

1865 

\_A man lying on a floor tries vainly to lift 
himself and speaks~\ 

I HAD a dream, so must have slept. I 
heard 
A voice which cried, "Sic semper"; — that 

was all; 
'Twas but a moment that I dozed; then came 
The frightful pain that woke me. Up I rose. 
And dragged me hither to this barn. Ah, 

God, 
I am one mass of pain. '^Sic semper/' still 
I hear the words as erst I shouted them. 
But not the voice which speaketh is mine own. 
'Tis that which cried them through my fitful 

sleep ; 
Yet, sometimes doth it change, and taketh first 
One accent, then another, till it seems 
As though a file of angels, clarion-voiced. 
Were marching by me, each one uttering 

words 
Announcing doom, of which I only hear 
Those two, ^^Sic semper" — fearful echo sound 
Both of each other's cries and of mine own 

[156] 



Which rang across a mimic stage — quick 

changed 
To setting of immortal tragedy, 
The greatest since that one at Harper's town 
Whereat I too assisted. ^'Sic semper," — thus 
The phrase reverberates, — but never moves 
To end that would declare a tyrant's doom ; — 
No, never, though I strain my sense to hear ! 

What shall be always unto him, whose head 
My pistol touched that eve ? 

What shall it be 
Forever unto me? 

I wonder did 
He suffer much and long before he died. 

God, I cannot kneel, — but lying prone 

1 pray he neither knew, nor felt, nor heard 
The crying of his wife and children round 
His couch. There is no nerve in me that 

thrills 
To cruel wish. My God — not one. 

A name 
I'm trying now to speak, — and cannot; — 
God's, 

[157] 



And Edwin's. — I can speak those names, 

when I 
Would pray or sob along their cadences, — 
Not his. My lips are paralyzed; my brain 
Is numb, when I would speak or think that 

name. 
Although I ever see his image clear 
And white upon a cloud. 

It seems to me 
If I could cry to him aloud, that he 
Would succor me, — would come adown those 

ranks 
Of angels, trumpet-tongued, proclaiming 

doom. 
Would raise his hand, and bid them all be 

still ; 
So silence merciful should soft surround 
My soul, now deafened by those clarion cries 
Unending. 

Ah, will Edwin bear a pain 
Thus always in his heart because of me. 
And never in the lowest whisper breathe 
My name, — tongue-tied unto its syllables, 
As I unto another's on this day? 

[158] 



What! Here they come! — Was that my 
voice that shrieked? 

God, but I hope none heard it of the men 
Who come, avengers of the blood that fell 
Down trickling from the slowly sinking head 
Of majesty. 

Ah, not alive will I 
Be ta'en. I cannot fight or run or hide; — 
But I can stand before yon marksman's gun 
And take his fire. Oh ! can I even stand? 

I must. I must. So — So! Now, soldier 

shoot 
Between the flames around me. Edwin will 
Deep bless thee for that bullet evermore. 
Ah! Ah! 

Great Lincoln pardon me ! 

My lips 
Have spoke his name ! 

And, having spoken, sure 
My spirit hath become of mercy, where- 
Soe'er it goes. — ^^Sic Semper/' 



[159] 



ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS 

1880 

A chamber in Washington, D. C. An old 
man, very small and fragile, and an evident 
cripple, sits in a wheeled chair. He is speaking 
to a fair-faced, middle-aged woman, who is very 
simply dressed in drab-colored garments. 

I NEVER did desire the bond should be 
So ruptured, and the country cloven twain ; 
Just read my record. But there's frantic blood 
In me, and at the last It maddened grew; 
And I believed In Georgia, — loved the state, 
And rioted In dream of empire. 

Well, 
This hand of mine Is smaller much than yours, 
Yet it has often clutched the bowie knife; 
You say my eyes are as a woman's, soft? 
They stared up straight and open once at him 
Whose fingers grasped my throat, as prone 

Hay 
Beneath his body, and I cried, "Strike on, 
Cut deep!" It makes me smile today, to 

think 
He dared not murder me outright that hour. 
Do you suppose his conscience stirred? Mine 

slept 

[160] 



Most peaceful sleep whene'er I drew a dirk. 
It was the fashion of my time, the whim 
Of bravery in the male and Southern soul 
To draw the knife. Perhaps, as Hamlet says, 
However, 'twas a custom, honored most 
When not observed. But I observed it well. 

I was such pigmy in my stature, that 
My spirit overflowed its limits, mad, 
And entered in my bowie knife ! 

Yet stroke 
Of mine did never quite let out a soul 
Unto the universal spaces. 

Yes, 
Today, as sit I helpless in my chair, 
I'm rather glad of that ; though scarce I know 
If I've backslidden in opinion toward 
Your Quaker doctrines. Still the Prince of 

Peace 
Does seem more real now to me than once ; — 
And He would ne'er have drawn a bowie 

knife. 

What think I of the Union and its cause? 
And of our present nation-building task? 

I've taken oath, — received forgiveness too, 
[i6i] 



Dreed out my weird In prison first besides; 

Done all the necessary drudgery hard. 

I hope I am a loyal gentleman, 

But scarcely feel myself repentant sinner. 

I did prefer, and still I should, a league 
Of States; each one with local pride and law 
And song and old tradition. Davis played 
The Southern federation false in that, 
And tried to rule as despot o'er a realm 
Down lying, — wide and even plain beneath 
His sway. While I desired the hills and vales, 
Diversified in form, and every road 
The peasant, going to his wedding, traced 
Between the mountains, nor surveyor knew; — 
And so I broke with Davis, — that is all. 

I never said It quite, but on my word 

If we must be a welded nation, not 

A linked, contracted chain of equal rings, 

I do prefer the Great Lakes bound us north, 

And so on, south and east and west 

Betwixt the gulf and oceans, as we learned 

The atlas when at school. 

The Negroes? Oh, 
I squirmed at first that they should walk on 
floors 

[162] 



Of parlors and of Congress halls and march 
All grinning to the ballot box. I felt 
Exactly as if pigs and sheep and cats 
Were voodooed into images of men 
By wizards foul, and set above the race 
For whom a God had made the earth. I had 
Most honest spoken, ere the war began. 
When said I God had meant that they should 

serve, 
And slavery be the changeless corner stone 
Unto the temple of the white man's life. 
But now I'm old; — a helpless invalid 
I sit, and look with ancient eyes upon 
An altered world, where hues and forms are 

not 
The same as those that in my youth I saw ; 
And Lincoln's dead, and Sumner too. 

I live. 
And stare around me, and I sometimes think 
God's purposes I failed to understand, 
Hot-headed in my fancies. Sumner full 
Believed in equal human brotherhood. 
Not quite did Lincoln. There is sweetness in 
That thought of brotherhood to age like mine, 
That feeleth need of tenderness. Perhaps 
Fraternal love is corner stone the best 
For this Republic. 

[163] 



Nay, but spare me more, 
Nor force, from Southern lips, admission full ! 
But if my manhood's strength was given 

wrong 
It Is tremendous thought to have in age, 
And shoulders such as mine, — they well may 

bend 
Beneath such burden of mistake. Although 
I try to lift mine eyes with steady glance 
Above a million graves of men who might 
Today have walked the pastures green of life, 
Had we surrendered slavery to a world 
That had decreed its death. 



[164] 



A MAN UNKNOWN TO HISTORY 

He sits pillowed In a large chair on an open 
porch, over which a banksia rose vine is In 
full bloom. He Is about eighty years old. A 
younger man sits near him, who has a typical 
New England face, narrow, fine-featured, and 
blond. The old man speaks brokenly, fre- 
quently pausing, and also often, without pause, 
Interrupting himself, both because of physical 
and emotional distress and disturbance. He 
wears a faded Confederate army overcoat. 

TX ZELL, yes, I reckoned that he was my 
^ ^ son ; 

He might have been, I knew; but, — it is hard 
To make you Abolition fellows know 
The way we Southern gentry feel, — though 

why 
You should not understand, I cannot guess ! 
No, not at all. 

Look here, you're white like me. 
Though black Republican, I'm told; now 

think, 
I'm white, and feel so, — why don't you feel 

white? 
A Negro wench may bear a Negro boy, 

[165] 



A little yellow-stained ; those things occurred ; 
It was a Negro still, — the mother's stamp 
Upon it deep. Of course; Oh, damn it! help 
Me out I say ! I want to use a speech 
That's decent. Always did I speak as though 
Some lady might be listening. 

Well, the boy, — 
What was I saying? Why, I babble now, 
My wife, she would have laughed to hear my 

tongue 
So stammer. Such a laugh she had ! 'Twas 

like 
The music of the mocking bird around 
Our home, — our fine, old Southern home, in 

years 
Before you Northern meddlers, and that man, 
From England, brought a discord to the land. 

Such happy Christmas gayeties we had ! 
My wife was like angelic hostess then; 
The neighbors drove plantations o'er to ours, 
And stayed for days, and back with them we 

went; 
'Twas all one holiday. The earth was glad. 
And how the boys, they courted, — had to 

court 

[i66] 



If they would win! Our Southern girls are 

proud 
And pure; — the purest women In the world, 
The fairest and most faithful maids and 

wives. 
We went to church In Christmas week; — 

communed, 
And never in our home we danced ; my wife 
Thought dancing sinful ; and she had her way, 
In that. 

I think a gentleman should yield 
A great deal to his wife's religion. When 
He comes to sit, as oft I sit, upon 
A wide veranda quite alone, he will 
Be glad he never danced — before her eyes, 
When looked they on him full of holy light. 
Rebuking, yet so grieved, that they must look 
Reproach ! You know that light in women's 

eyes ! 
Oh, no, you can't. Your Northern females are 
Unlike our high-souled ladies. They are cold 
And prim, or vixenish, when they reprove. 
I say I know whereof I speak ! I knew 
A Northern spinster once; — a governess 
My sisters had, when we were children ; 



[167] 



No, 

I thank my God, I never trod the soil, 

Polluted so, in Massachusetts, by 

The steps of men who sought to steal our 

wealth, 
(Because we had a kind could walk and eat,) 
And tried to drive it in their muddy yard 
Of level surface, there to idly bask. 

We let our servants in the Christmas time 

rejoice ; 
Gave presents, handkerchiefs and extra food. 
It made my wife right happy so to give ! 
We let them all get drunk, and only laughed 
To see them lying round in lazy sleep. 

I had to hire that yellow youngster out; 
He needed breaking in. His saucy eyes 
Annoyed my wife, although her temper was 
An angel's, but, of course, she had her whims. 
— I'm old and sick. I can't restrain myself! 
Give me a drink. She always used that glass ! 
White as its crystal was her soul, — a jar 
Of earthenware was mine; — and yet 'twill 

stand 
Some day, in heaven, by hers. The potter 

shapes 

[ i68 ] 



His clay and mixes it for diverse use, — 
What is the text ? 

Oh, yes, I mind me now; 
It was the boy that I was telling of ; 
I did not like to flog him hard, and sent 
Him to a nigger manager, far-famed 
The country through for daring, forceful skill. 
Back came the boy, one day, all gashed and 

bruised 
(He had been kicked as well as flogged a bit) . 
He stood before me; — he was seventeen; 
('Twas that which angered so my lovely wife. 
For we had wedded been a score of years;) 
Oh, well, the boy, — he had the maddest eyes, 
So big and wild and stag-like ! Once I shot 
A stag; — I know the way such creatures look 
When wounded, staggering unto death, they 

glare, 
Before they fall. The boy had such a glance. 
There standing beautiful and dark, though 

stained 
With blood and grimed with dirt, and torn 

with thorns, — 
(He had run barefoot through the woods, 

you see!) 
Say, do you know how beautiful those boys 

[169] 



And girls — mulatto-colored, sometimes are? 
Oh, yes, he begged me then to take his part 
Nor send him to the driver more ; he did ! 

I'm old — I do not care, — but in my eyes the 

wind 
Is blowing. Move the screen. Thanks, that 

is all. 

What could I do? My wife was sick that 

day. 
How could I cross the fancy of her heart? 

'Twas our misfortune, that we gentlemen, 
Here in the South, must such a prayer refuse. 
As was that boy's. We walked upon a crust ; 
The gulf below was worse than icy flood. 
Our wives and daughters, all their happiness. 
Their safety too, — those were the things at 

stake. 
Our place within the Union, all our rights; — 
One Negro unsubdued was like a torch, — 
And every dwelling is combustible ! 

What though the boy resembled so a stag? 
He was a slave and m.ust a slave remain, 
And as a slave submit unto the whip : — 

[ 170] 



Ugh, — but my flesh crawls at the thought 

today ! 
I sent him back, — then hid myself and cried. 

You Northern fools could never understand, — 
Or would not, — all we had to do and bear. 
We Southern gentlemen of family. 

Pshaw, yes, he was my property. Why not? 

I sold his freedom to him at the last. 

My wife was ill again, — I would have sold 

My soul for her, — say naught of Fred. Be- 
sides, 

It made him free. Why should not you be 
glad 

One nigger got off so, when I was poor ? 

\_A Pause'] 

I was the oldest soldier in the field. 
Through four long years of war ; 'twas hard, 
hard work. 

We fought for liberty, — and lost, — and lost. 

My wife was dead when came I broken home, 
And Southern freedom lay beside her slain ! 

[171] 



Oh ! damn your drivel talk of niggers now 1 

And yet the boy was beautiful and tall; 
Know you if he is living in the North? 
What! he? A mighty man, and high es- 
teemed? 
Don't jest; how could a Negro be such man? 

I'm quite in earnest; Southern gentlemen, 
Like me, took always kindly interest 
In their old slaves. I do, — ungrateful beasts 
Although they are! — No, no, I choke; — Let 
go! 

I'm dying! Well, why not? The Southern 

flag 
Has fallen; — it is right that now I fall! 

flag of beauty and the will of God ! 

1 tell you God Almighty meant that we 
Should rule these Southern lands, and sail the 

streams 
And own the Gulf of Mexico, and all 
Adjacent territories, and be lords. 
In free and equal law; — above the serfs 
Whom God created such, on purpose. Yes! 
Or else they fell to that estate ; and just 

[172] 



It Is they there remain, so we can move, 
We Saxon men, in majesty, around. 
Unhampered in our great desires and joy 
Of haughty living. That's what Stephens 

said; — 
I know. 'Tis what the Bible means. My 

wife 
Oft read the Bible; she declared 'twas so. 
You infidels have got up notions, but 
The Bible is against you, — and the law 
Our fathers framed; it was against you too. 
How dared you tamper with the compact 

thus. 
The Constitution? Well, we'll not obey 
Your patched, new-fangled one; I speak out 

plain. 

A nigger have a man's ambition? Stuff! 
A nigger has but sauciness, — that's all. 

But I am dying, — never more shall see 
The Christmas glory in the land, nor hear 
The banjo in the Negro's hut, when low 
The sinking sun drips liquid rubies down 
Upon the old plantation fields beside 
The swamp. 

[A Pause"] 

[173] 



On, on boys, charge the Yankees back ! 
The mudsill spoilers of our homes. 

I'm faint. 
But one word more ! If ever you see Fred, 
Take him aside, and say his father loved 
Him all the while, and wished that he were 
white. 

Dear Lord, receive my soul, — wash out my 

sins, — 
Forgive me ! O Estelle ! — Estelle ! 



[174] 



A MAN OF THE PERIOD 

He Is between fifty and sixty years old, tall, 
dark, and thin-faced. He wears a loose negligee 
costume, and sits on a wide, open veranda, the 
wooden posts to which are a little rickety and 
weather-stained. No one is with him, but he 
acts as if he thought some one were sitting in an 
empty chair near him, and he seems to speak 
to such a person. 

/^ H, are you there again, like Banquets 
^^ ghost, — 

Your face much whiter than It used to be? 
I'm not afraid of you, although you wear 
A shroud, to which the soggy mosses cling 
That grow In marshes; — and I dare to look 
On you, and without flinching tell to you 
The legend of my life. The tale is brief. 

I was a Harvard boy; I sat within 
Its academic hall, and heard a voice 
Unlike all others ever sounded through 
The palpitating ether to mine ears; 
'Twas like the ringing of a golden bell, 
That ringeth sole, in answer to a chime, 
Unheard by mortal men, of Instruments 
In Heaven; and I saw a face that brought 

[175] 



Full revelation of the poet's dream — 
Who likened Arthur's to an Angel's, when 
The great Pendragon flamed above his helm, 
And he had clear announced the law of God, 
Its justice and its mercy both. 

I went 
From college home to Mississippi, where 
My father kept a mourning fast, each year, 
Upon the day the Yankee Presidents 
Proclaimed Thanksgiving with their brazen 
tongues. 

I vowed unto my sire, my bride and soul, 
That since I had been born too late to fight 
For Southern rights, in open field, I would 
Be champion daily, — by the homestead hearth. 
Beside the rivers, in the graveyards, fields, 
And in the courts, and never would I yield 
A point of law, or any chance that could 
Be seized, unto the Northern wish or thought. 

That vow I kept. I heard its mandates new. 
Each year, interpreted for newer case. 
I followed blast as of a herald's call 
With summons here and there, through fog 
and fen, 

[176] 



Through city streets, and highways long and 

wide, 
Through hidden paths, and tangled under- 
growth 
Of passion and of action. 

Every inch 
Of way I fought, with weapon whatso'er 
My hand could grasp ; and every inch I rode 
Whatever steed would bear me on. 

I saw 
A blended mass of living blackness stand 
Between me and my goal. I rode it through. 
And drove its fragments foul adown the night. 

That's all I have to say, — save this, that now. 
Without or sense or reason, sounds that voice 
Of golden beauty in my ears, as erst 
I heard it in Fair Harvard's hall, and these 
Are words it saith, ''Our God intends all men 
Should equal be and free." And, while I hear, 
I think of faces black as yours was when 
You said you were my brother, and I shot 
You by the ballot box. Then rises clear 
A great Avenging Angel to my sight. 
Fair-faced, and golden-haired, and azure- 
eyed; 
He Cometh from that blackened mass and loud 

[ 177] 



He salth, as certain of his right to speak 
The holiest words that sinful, mortal men 
Ere heard, "The little ones of Christ thou 

hast 
Offended, and, through them, thy Master." 

Then 
A wall of green and shining cymophanes 
Comes forward, like a living form, across 
The cotton field. He turns, and lo, each stone 
Forth darteth fire, as of a living eye. 
Green, wondrous, meeting thus the azure ray 
Of his commanding glance, till all the air 
Between Is full of intermingled beams 
Of color, green and blue, all vivid, yet 
Not clashing, — only glowing side by side. 
And full athwart each other. Then he lifts 
A hand, as white and inly radiant as 
It fashioned were of fibrous, flexile pearl. 
And at the gesture, slow the gleaming wall 
DIvideth, while a saffron mist uprises. 
And, veiling, hides those chrysoberyl eyes ; 
His hand then sinketh down and leaveth trail 
Like moonbeam in the air, while quick the 

fog 
Back rolleth, as a curtain, to reveal 
A host of seraphs, clad in green and gold, 

[178] 



Large-eyed and solemn, moving on to me 
Across the cotton field. He, whirling round, 
Comes forward, leading them, and scimitars, 
Fierce radiating silver lances light. 
Rise flashing, held in every seraph grasp. 
They are most terrible In beauty, thus 
On-coming after him. 

Ah look, I beg! 
Protect me from him and his seraphs, though 
I shot you down and dragged you to the 

swamp 
And hurled you deep Into the muddy ooze. 

God! can it be you are my brother born. 
And meant as such by God, — though black 

you are? 
And I — I knew It not. 



[I7Q] 



HELEN PITTS DOUGLASS 

SHE rose up, queenly In her womanhood 
As Duchess May of whom the poet sang, 
And standing thus dark-eyed and calmly 

mouthed, 
She flung her white kid glove full In the teeth, 
Close-set for snarling, of a country's scorn. 
She flung a glove as white as pearl, as soft 
As her pure fingers, and she said : " Make you 
A Nation out of human fragments, this 
Or that of God's creation, — as you please; 
For I win wed the man I love and deem 
So great, that It Is honor to my soul 
He deigns to reach to me his hand with faith 
That mine hath equal clasp. So will I wed 
And ride, both through the castle gate with 

him. 
And on the castle wall, and proudly hurl 
Myself down battlemented heights with him, 
If need shall be of such companion-act. 
So win I do whatever be your dreams 
Of science and heredity, whate'er 
Your racial preference, or purposes 
Of empire. For, behold me, I today 
Am soul Incarnate and alive to love 
That maketh duty. I obey the law 

[i8o] 



Which is for living women. I have seen 
A human god and heard his call to come 
And be a goddess at his side.'* 

She spoke, 
Then moved majestic from the glaring light 
Filled full of curious eyes. Back smiling 

scorn 
Of womanhood for social scorn, she went 
Unto a temple which she entered in, 
A ring upon her hand. There she abode 
Thenceforth with wifely dignity. 



[i8i] 



L'ENVOI 

"QHALL I not see the flowers again," she 
^ said, 
My mother, ere she died, and wistfully. 
With old, sweet eyes did gaze and question 
me 
Who could not speak, but sought to smile 
Instead; — 

In purple glory doth wistaria spread 

Along her house, red Is her hawthorn tree, 
And near her cottage by Atlantic sea 

Sabbatia lifts her radiated head. 

That bright pink flower she loved, to thee I 

bring, 
And wonder as the pregnant year moves on 
What blossoms open whither she has gone; 

Ah, who will tell me any secret thing 
That God keeps hid in His immensity, 
While here I wait the doom that comes for 
thee? 



[182] 



ROSE petal now of God, art thou, mine 
own, — 
A star-like part of that effulgent light, 
That central Flower whence radiance 
streameth bright 
To all the suns and systems in the zone, — 

While I, prostrated on the earth am thrown. 
And over me, thus lying in the night, 
Dark shadows chasing phantoms take their 
flight 

And winds of destiny in passing moan; — 

If God, in truth, thy being doth inclose 
Will He permit a prayer to thee through 

tears. 
Since I can use no common speech with thee ? 

If not mine earthly, be my Heavenly Rose 
And breathe, I pray, thy sweetness down the 

spheres 
To trance my spirit with thy love for me ! 



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JUL 9 19»» 



LIBRARY 




